(Text and Audio)
Title: The Temple Tax
Today we dive back into Matthew and over the course of the next two weeks we will conclude chapter 17 by looking at a passage that has a very interesting message within in, but it’s not the message that is most usually associated with the study of this passage.
Jesus has a reputation, both in his day, and even among us today as readers and believers of the New Testament of being confrontational, particularly with the religious leaders of the day.
And rightly so, we see time and time again Jesus is forced to correct the false teachings or the Pharisees and Sadducees to guide people into a right relationship with His father.
But Jesus was not controversial for the sake of controversy, and in this passage we will see another side of Jesus, and what he does will set the stage for one of the most important concepts of Christian living and fellowship.
Most will read that passage that we are about to and conclude it is about whether or not it is the duty of the Christian to pay taxes to civil authorities, but I think there is a much bigger teaching being offered by Jesus here, one that is about the heart.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
(read/pray)
- They Stayed in Capernaum a While
I think this is a good place to start today. We read in verse 24 that Jesus, Peter, and the rest of the apostles have arrived in Capernaum and have decided to stay there for a while.
We are able to discern this for at least 3 reasons:
- They are staying in a “house” (verse 25) that they have most likely rented for this stay.
- Capernaum has a big enough Jewish population that they support a Temple, this would have made for a candid audience for Jesus’s teachings.
- The entirety of chapter 18 is another of Jesus’s great series of teachings, and there is no reference of the Jesus and the disciples moving anywhere. In fact, the next geographical reference we see doesn’t come until the first verse of chapter 19 “…when Jesus had finished these sayings, He departed from Galilee…”
- What was the Temple Tax?
This is an O.T. commandment from the law given to Moses by the Lord in Exodus 30:13. The Law stated that each able bodied male, age 20 and above, should pay this tribute of one half-shekel as an offering to the Lord’s sanctuary. This tax was NOT a tithe. The tithe was for the ministry of the local synagogue (or in our case, the local Church). Rather, the temple tax was collected for the maintenance of the actual building. (I’m sure Mike and Andy would be fully in favor of establishing a Temple Tax here.)
Interestingly enough, and much UNLIKE our civil taxes, this tax has never increased. Not once. The same commandment given by God to Moses of one-half shekel was still amount they were paying in Jesus’s day, some 2500 years later. How do I know this?
Greek: didrachmon, often translated as “tribute” (one half shekel)
This was understood to be an annual tax that would be paid once a year. Now, it is also worth noting that this tax was not without dispute or controversy amongst the Jewish people.
- The Sadducees disapproved of the tax and some of them only paid it once in a lifetime.
- Payment could be made in person at the passover festival in Jerusalem, but collections were made in other areas of Palestine and abroad a month earlier. This incident therefore takes place about a month before Passover.
- After A.D. 70, when the temple was destroyed, the Romans diverted this tax to the temple of Jupiter in Rome, after which it ceased to be a matter of patriotism and became a symbol of their subjection to a pagan power.
- Who pays taxes?
We we close the first half of this morning’s lesson looking at this question that Jesus asks of Simon Peter. In verse 25 we read that Jesus “anticipated him” and before Peter could ask the question that Jesus knew Peter was going to ask, Jesus instead beats him to it by asking a question of his own.
Now, we don’t know if Jesus “anticipating” Peter was a supernatural event where Jesus knew what Peter was going to ask, or if Jesus had seen Peter talking with the priests of the temple and just figured that they were going to ask these traveling Jewish men to pay the Temple tax because it was customary for the surrounding temples to collect the main temple tax about a month before passover.
This collection a month before was most likely done because not every Jew in the region could afford to travel to Jerusalem for the passover festival, so they were given the option to pay at their local synagogues instead.
Either way, whether by supernatural means of just human intuition, Jesus knew this temple tax issue was going to become a teachable moment and so he asks Peter a very simple question: What do you think Simon? From whom do the kings of earth take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?”
From Just this question we can deduce several things:
- Jesus is authentically asking Simon what HE thinks. Good teachers give their students and opportunity to ponder great questions and come up their own answers. This shows that Jesus was validating the growth and wisdom of one of his closest followers. Jesus could just tell them the answer to this temple tax issue, but he wants them to be able to understand and communicate the reasoning as much as he does.
- Jesus is asking Simon, “Do the sons and daughters of kings here on earth pay taxes to their parents, or are they exempt because of their status?”
- This ugly concept still exists today. Congress votes to force the people to have a certain type of health care, but they have their own type of health care. Guess who’s coverage is better?
- Jesus is not a “King of the Earth.” He is so much greater than that. So essentially what Jesus is getting at is this: “IF princes don’t pay taxes to the their father, then should the Son of God pay taxes to his father?”
- The real question: Who is Jesus? Son or stranger?
Close:
Next week we will see Jesus’s response to the issue, and more importantly, why he chooses to respond the way that he does, and it’s quite amazing.