NOTES for Mar 12:13-17

The Pharisees come to Jesus to trap Him in His words. By asking Him to resolve whether it is lawful for a devout Jew to pay Roman taxes, they confront Him with an insoluble contradiction. Whom should a believer obey: God or the secular authorities? To them these things are entirely incompatible. But not to Jesus, who "shows no partiality" and is free from established clichés. The Lord's reasoning is striking in its simplicity. Instead of citing Holy Scripture, appealing to sages, or quoting the opinions of authoritative people, He asks them to give Him a denarius and draws His astonishingly precise conclusion directly from the coin used to pay the tax.

At times we find ourselves in the role of such Pharisees, asking God questions without expecting that He has an answer to them. Yet the solution may lie directly before us, if we are not afraid and fearlessly cast aside every prejudice.