Conversation Points for Matthew 22:15-22

Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?

Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• This is not a teaching from Jesus about the separation of church and state (a uniquely American idea that would have had no meaning in the first century). Rather it is the next section of the growing controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees, who by this point had already decided to kill him and were looking for an excuse to do so. Here, and in each of their two following attempts (dealing with the resurrection and the Great Commandment), Jesus skillfully managed to affirm their position while still challenging them.
• Matthew uses the Pharisees to represent the church’s opponents in his time, describing them as counters of Jesus, with their own disciples and also echoing the words “What do you think?” (cf. Matthew 21:28). The Herodians represent supporters of the Roman regime and thus supporters of the paying of taxes to the regime.
• The tax in question was not any general tax. It refers to the “census” (kensos) or Roman head-tax, instituted in 6 CE when Judea became a Roman province. Protest to the census tax triggered the Judean nationalism that became the Zealot movement that was already emerging in Jesus’ time and eventually fomented the Jewish Roman War of 66-70 (when the Temple was destroyed). This tax could be paid only in Roman coin, most of which contained an image and inscription considered blasphemous by many Jews (“Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest”).
• The Pharisees question was a trick. If Jesus said you should pay the tax, it would alienate the nationalists. But if he said you shouldn’t, it would make him subject to arrest by the Romans.
• Jesus answers the question by asking the Pharisees for the coin required for the tax. It is notable that Jesus did not have one, but the Pharisees, inside the inner sanctums of the Temple, were able to produce a coin with the emperor’s image and inscription on it. While not clearly answering the question, Jesus does give an indirect yes. It is not against the Torah to pay taxes to the emperor. The Pharisees have already acknowledged this by producing a Roman coin, thus demonstrating that they are participating in the Roman economic system.
• One way to look at this may be the two kinds of righteousness Luther described in his 1535 Commentary on Galatians. Civil righteousness, per Luther, is how we act in society. It can be improved and is something we are responsible for. Spiritual righteousness, on the other hand, is about our relationship with God, and cannot be changed or improved by us.
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.

Thompson, Erick J. “Commentary on Matthew 22:15-22.” Working Preacher. . Accessed 16 October 2017.