“”Show me [Jesus] the money used for the tribute [Tax to Caesar].” And they brought Him a denarius, and Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and title are these?” They said, “Caesar’s”. Then He said to them, “Pay therefore to Caesar the things that are due to Caesar, and pay to God the things that are due to God.”” Matthew 22:19-21 ->me: When I read this passage today it was the first time that I applied what Jesus said to all things I might need to ‘render’ to any organization or person. Jesus did not see a conflict in paying taxes and giving God what is His. Now you might take the comment that Jesus stated (give Caesar what is Caesar’s….) as being nonsense because God’s claim is that above Caesar; but Jesus, without reducing the demands of loyalty to God, indicates that political allegiance even to a pagan state is not incompatible with it. This is not a rigid division of life into the ‘sacred’ and the ‘secular’, but rather a recognition that the ‘secular’ finds its proper place within the overriding claim of the ‘sacred’. I can work at Microsoft, a very worldly environment in which I render effort and get paid for the work I do there, but God owns my heart and that I give freely to Him. I have been bought with a price. Everything good in me has been created by God; my strengths, talents, patience, mercy, etc. Anything I [the new man] have to bring to the table is God’s and should be rendered to Him.
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