Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 20 verses 20 through 26:
20 So they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be honest, in order to trap him by what he said, so as to hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor. 21So they asked him, ‘Teacher, we know that you are right in what you say and teach, and you show deference to no one, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. 22Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’ 23But he perceived their craftiness and said to them, 24‘Show me a denarius. Whose head and whose title does it bear?’ They said, ‘The emperor’s.’ 25He said to them, ‘Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ 26And they were not able in the presence of the people to trap him by what he said.
They were trying to trap him.
Remember that. This was a gotcha question. It was a "put him between a rock and a hard place" question.
Answer one way, and you anger the religious conservatives who detested the tax system instituted by the occupation government. Answer another way, and you risk riling up the empire.
Jesus gave a miracle answer that bought him another day.
But at the end of that day it still didn't matter. They had come to trap him in what he said. When he was too smart for that, they decided they'd just trap him in what he didn't say. By the end of the week he would be dead.
The miracle answer was smart, and quick-witted and made the interlocators' questions look silly. But they weren't there for answers; they were there for blood.
Remember that when you're watching all these talking heads on TV. A lot of them aren't really there for answers -- no matter how good the answers are.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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