They began to lie in wait for Jesus; and they sent some spies who pretended to be righteous, to trap Him in His words and hand Him over to the authorities and to the power of the governor. These spies asked Him, “Teacher, we know that You speak and teach people righteously, and that You do not show partiality, but teach the way of God in truth. 

Is it lawful for us to pay tribute to Caesar, or not?” Jesus saw through their cunning and replied, “Why are you testing Me? Show Me a coin. Whose image and inscription are on it?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then He said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” They could not trap Him in His words before the people; but, amazed at His answer, they fell silent.”^[1]

These people who approached the Lord were asking questions, not to receive an answer from Him, but to test Him. These people revealed the deceit in their hearts. Even today, there are still many such people who pretend to be righteous. Our hearts are known before God, so no one can deceive Him. We must come to God with a pure heart and a desire to learn His truths. People who merely try to trap those who proclaim God’s truth with their words or to confuse them have no chance of understanding the Gospel. Such people do not value their own souls or those of others because they do not want to hear the answers to their questions; they are merely looking for reasons to argue.

People who think they know everything cannot receive the truth of Christ. The people who came to trap the Lord Jesus with their words wanted to confuse Him. The Lord lays bare their hearts and tells them that they have come to test Him. The Lord urges them to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, referring to our legal obligations that must be fulfilled: “Give to everyone what you owe them: to whom you owe taxes, pay taxes; to whom you owe customs duties, pay them; to whom you owe respect, show it; to whom you owe honor, give it. Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for whoever loves others has fulfilled the Law.”^[2]

This is a law in Scripture, namely, that we owe nothing to anyone so that we may bear witness in this regard. The second thing the Lord wants to make clear through this statement is addressed to those who have employees under their authority: “Masters, give your servants what you owe them and what is due to them, for you know that you also have a Master in heaven.”^[3] The employer must be a witness to those he has hired, and they must fear the Lord. The Lord also tells us that we must provide food and shelter for our bodies. We must care for our bodies because the Lord has given them to us. “For no one ever hated his own body, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the Church.”^[4]

Sometimes we neglect ourselves and do not take proper care of ourselves. As Christians, we must remember that we have been bought with a price and that we no longer belong to ourselves, but to the Lord. However, in all things we must exercise moderation, so as not to fall into the other extreme of paying far too much attention to our bodies: “Take care of yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down by gluttony and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly.”^[5]

Food for the person who seeks God must have the same value as it did for the Lord Jesus. Although there were people who said of the Lord that He was “a glutton and a drunkard,”^[6] this was not true. Jesus did not place emphasis on food; on the contrary, He fasted very often, as this was a way of life for Him. We must not torment our bodies, but only keep them under control so that God may use us.

Our relationship with money must be the same as the relationship the Lord Jesus had with money. He had no money to pay the Temple tax; instead, all the money the disciples collected was placed in a purse kept by Judas Iscariot so that they could give what they had collected to the poor.

The Lord is not against people who have wealth, but they must manage it as He commands: “Urge the rich of this age not to be arrogant and not to place their hope in perishable riches, but in God, who gives us all things in abundance so that we may enjoy them. Urge them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, to be generous, ready to share with others, so that they may lay up for the future a good foundation as a treasure, in order to grasp true life.”^[7] We must guard against greed in order to remain pure before the Lord.

In the second part of His answer, the Lord Jesus says, “Give to God what belongs to God.” This is, in fact, the essence of the Lord’s answer. Each of us must first know what belongs to God. The Bible says, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it! For He founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.”^[8] It is right that what God has created should belong to Him.

“What do you have that you did not receive?”^[9] Everything we have received comes from God. Every person is born with a gift from God: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”^[10] These things come from God for the purpose of being used for God. Everything we receive from God is meant to be put back into the service of God. If we claim these things as our own, we are not fulfilling God’s will. An example of a man who did not put what he had received from the Lord’s hands to work for the Lord is given to us in the Gospel according to Luke: “And he told them this parable: ‘The field of a rich man had yielded a bountiful harvest. And he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? For I have no more room to store my harvest.’ ‘This,’ he said, ‘is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones; there I will store all my grain and all my goods; and I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have plenty of goods stored up for many years; rest, eat, drink, and be merry!’” But God said to him: “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So it is with anyone who stores up treasures for himself but is not rich toward God.”^[11]

The purpose of our existence must be to grow rich toward God. If we do not do this, we will meet the same end as that rich man. We must not put ourselves first and accumulate treasures merely for our own comfort, but rather remember that everything we have comes from God and is meant to be used in His service.

All that we are and all that we have is for God, not for ourselves. We often have the illusion that these things belong to us, but that is not the case at all. At some point, we will have to stand before the Lord to give an account of how we have managed what He has entrusted to us. Let us be very careful how we use our possessions. We must all be faithful stewards. If we put the things we possess at our own service, we dethrone God, making ourselves masters.

The third thing the Lord wants to tell us is that our souls belong to Him. He is the One who breathed the breath of life into us: “The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”^[12] What distinguishes us humans from animals is our soul, which is alive and eternal. We possess self-awareness, free will, and a sense of eternity within us. Humans have a sense of right and wrong within them. That is why the Lord says in the parable of the rich man that He will reclaim his soul, because the soul is given to us by God. The human soul will never die because it is part of God and has His breath within it.

For this reason, we are urged in the Word of God not to despise the eternity of our souls and the place where they will end up: “But remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, ‘I find no pleasure in them’; before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars, grow dark, and before the clouds return after the rain; before the keepers of the house begin to tremble and the strong ones stoop; before those who grind cease because they are few; until those who look out the windows grow dim; until the two doors facing the street are shut; when the rumbling of the mill grows faint, you are roused by the chirping of a bird, the voices of all the singers are heard muffled, you fear every height and are frightened on the road; until the white-haired almond tree blossoms, and the locust barely crawls; until your desires pass, for man is heading toward his eternal home, and the mourners roam the alleys; until the silver cord is severed, until the golden bowl is shattered, until the pitcher is broken at the spring, and until the wheel at the well is broken; until the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”^[13]

Every soul will have to present itself in a state of purity before God. He will not receive into His Kingdom those who have not known how to forgive the faults of others, those who have lived selfish lives, thinking not of God but only of themselves, those who have lived in sin believing that only they know of it, even though God sees our hearts and knows what each person hides.

In order to be cleansed of all wrongdoing, we must ask God for forgiveness, repent of all the evil in our lives, and persevere in doing good. If we do not do this, we will have lived in vain. We must make time for God and for the eternity of our souls.

^[1] Luke 20:20–26.

^[2] Romans 13:7, 8.

^[3] Colossians 4:1.

^[4] Ephesians 5:29.

^[5] Luke 21:34.

^[6] Luke 7:34.

^[7] 1 Timothy 6:17–19.

^[8] Psalm 24:1, 2.

^[9] 1 Corinthians 4:7.

^[10] James 1:17.

^[11] Luke 12:16–21.

^[12] Genesis 2:7.

^[13] Ecclesiastes 12:1–7.