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PROGRAM D-6861
Jesus taught us to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. Since there are no Caesars in our lives, does this have any meaning in our lives today? I definitely think our Lord was laying down an important guideline for us.
You remember that occasion—it’s recorded in Matthew 22:15-22—when the Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus. They posed a question to try to catch him off guard and cause him to indict himself with his own words. They said,
“‘Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’
“But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, ‘You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.’ They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, ‘Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?’ ‘Caesar’s,’ they replied. Then he said to them, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.’ When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.”
The Pharisees were trying to get Jesus to say that Caesar was of no importance and they owed him no allegiance; then they’d have him in trouble with the law and could have him arrested.
But Jesus was too smart for their scheming, and in answering them he gave to all of us a very important biblical principle. Our allegiance to Jesus Christ does not relieve us of our duties to others, even to people who may not be godly. We are to be good citizens and examples of giving to others what is rightfully theirs.
I’d like to apply this principle to our working worlds today. Most of us who work have an employer, someone for whom you work, who hands you a paycheck at regular intervals. And it is highly likely that many of those employers are not godly people or godly organizations.
If we think of our employers as the Caesars in our lives, then we can apply this principle and it can give us some very good guidance on our behavior and responsibilities as employees. I will be pointing out what we do owe to our employers and jobs, and what we don’t.