Mark 12:13-17
In this small section of the gospel of Mark, some Pharisees and Herodians try to get Jesus to fumble for words, or make a mistake. The King James version says they try to; "entrap him in his talk." What they say to Jesus in verses 14-15 is just this, tying to get him to say something they could use against him. If you read Mark 12:1-12 you will know that Jesus has been talking to the Pharisees, and telling them the parable of the wicked tenants. They believe that Jesus is referring to them and for this they want to arrest him, and imprison him. They ask him if they should be paying taxes to Caesar, as you know from the text. But Jesus knows they are trying to do this to him and as we read at the end of verse 15 that he asked them to show him a coin. Then he asks them, who's likeness was on the coin, and being a Roman coin, it was Caesars. Then in verse 17 Jesus says to them that what is Caesars is his, and what belongs to God is God's.
And as it says at the end of verse 17 they were amazed by him.
This is an important lesson to us all. Since we belong to God, we must give ourselfs to God! This may mean giving up our will for that of God, and he does have our best interests at heart, even though it may not seem good to us at the time. Sometimes when we come to a decision we take over and say, well God will give me the passion to do one or the other right? Truly this is not the case we need to surrender ourselfs to God, and ask him what he wants us to do, he may not answer right away, but as we have all heard many a times God, works on his own time not ours. If we rely on him, things will happen for the best. Jesus tells us in his sermon on the mount that our yes should be yes and our no, no, this means if we say we are going to do one thing, and then do the other, are we living for God, or for ourselfs? I will touch on this more in a future study though.
