What did Jesus say about taxes?

At a Glance

What I said: Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s (Mark 12:17). I paid the Temple tax, lest we cause them to stumble (Matthew 17:27). I ate with tax collectors.

What the rest of the Bible says: When Israel asked for a king, the prophet Samuel warned them: He will take one tenth … and you will be his servants (1 Samuel 8:17). The law of Moses built care for the poor into the tithe.

When today’s view appeared: Christians have argued about my answer ever since I gave it. The claims that taxes are theft, or that taxes are the way Christians love their neighbor, are both modern readings of an old saying.

The short answer: I did not tell anyone to refuse Caesar his coin. I told them that everything with God’s image on it belongs to God, and Caesar’s coin was not the most important thing in the room.

It was a trap.

In my last week in Jerusalem, some Pharisees and some supporters of King Herod came to me together, which was strange in itself, since they were not natural allies. They flattered me first. Then they asked: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Shall we give, or shall we not give? (Mark 12:14–15).

If I said pay, the crowd would turn on me. The tax was the hated tribute to Rome, paid in Roman coin. About twenty-five years earlier, a man named Judas the Galilean had led a revolt against it, saying that paying it was slavery and that God alone was Israel’s master.¹

If I said don’t pay, Herod’s men would report me to the governor for sedition.

I asked them to bring me a denarius. They brought one. Whose is this image and inscription? Caesar’s.²

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s (Mark 12:17).

What I meant

People have read that sentence many ways for two thousand years. Here is what my hearers would have heard.

The coin had Caesar’s face on it, and words calling him the son of a god.² Some devout Jews, later sources say, would not even look at such a coin. My questioners could produce one, there in the Temple courts. So give it back to him. It has his picture on it.

And then: give God what is God’s. Every Jew in that courtyard knew the first page of the scriptures, where God made human beings in his own image (Genesis 1:27). The coin bears Caesar’s image. You bear God’s. Caesar can have his metal. He does not get you.

It was not a lesson in civics. I did not say that Caesar and God each rule half of life. I said that the coin was small, and the claim of God was on everything else.

And notice what happened at my trial. My accusers told Pilate: We found this man perverting the nation, forbidding paying taxes to Caesar (Luke 23:2). That was a lie. But they knew it was the kind of charge that would get a man crucified.

The Temple tax, and the fish

Every Jewish man paid a small yearly tax for the upkeep of the Temple. When the collectors asked Peter whether I paid it, he said yes. Then I asked him: From whom do the kings of the earth receive toll or tribute? From their children, or from strangers? From strangers. Therefore the children are exempt. But, lest we cause them to stumble … (Matthew 17:25–27). And I sent him fishing for the coin.

I did not think God’s children owed God’s house a fee. I paid it anyway, so as not to give offense.

The tax collectors

Tax collectors in my world were not civil servants. They bought the right to collect tolls and kept what they could squeeze above the amount owed. My people saw them as thieves and traitors.

I called one of them, Levi, to follow me, and ate at his house with his friends. The religious teachers asked, Why is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners? (Mark 2:16). When Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, met me, he promised to repay fourfold anything he had taken unfairly (Luke 19:8). When tax collectors asked John the Baptist what to do, he told them, Collect no more than that which is appointed to you (Luke 3:13).

I did not condemn taxes. I condemned taking more than was fair, and I ate with the men everyone else despised.

What the rest of your Bible says

When Israel asked Samuel for a king, he warned them what a king would cost. He will take your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, even their best, and give them to his servants. He will take one tenth of your seed … He will take one tenth of your flocks; and you will be his servants (1 Samuel 8:14–15, 17). They wanted a king anyway. Solomon’s taxes and forced labor became so heavy that the kingdom split after his death (1 Kings 12:4).

The law of Moses had its own tithe: a tenth of the harvest, given for the priests and Levites, and every third year stored in the towns so that the foreigner living among you, the fatherless, and the widow could come and eat (Deuteronomy 14:28–29). The people’s own giving fed their poor.

After I was gone, a letter of Paul told Christians in Rome: For this reason you also pay taxes … give everyone what you owe: if you owe taxes, pay taxes (Romans 13:6–7). Paul was writing to a small, vulnerable community under Nero, telling them not to make trouble.

What came after

For most of history, Christians paid their taxes and argued about what rulers did with them.

Some refused when they could not in conscience pay for war. In 1846 Henry David Thoreau, who was no churchman, spent a night in jail for refusing a poll tax that he said helped support slavery and the Mexican War. In 1849 he published the essay later called Civil Disobedience.³ Some Quakers and Mennonites have refused the part of their taxes that pays for war.⁴

In the United States today, Christians are divided about taxes much as everyone else is. Some say that taxes taken by force are a kind of theft, and that charity belongs to churches and families. Others say that taxes are how a nation cares for its poor and sick, the way the third-year tithe did. Both sides quote my sentence about Caesar.

What You’ll Hear Back

“Taxation is theft.”

I did not say so. When I was handed the coin, I said to give it back to the one whose face was on it. The law of Moses had its own tithe for the poor, required of everyone. You may argue that a tax is too high, or badly spent. Your Bible has plenty to say about rulers who take too much. But it does not say that a ruler who takes anything is a thief.

“Render unto Caesar means keep religion out of politics.”

I did not say that either. I said that God’s claim covers everything that bears his image, which is every human being. That is not a small, private corner of life. The prophets were political, and so was I: the men who crucified me thought so.

“Romans 13 says to obey the government in everything.”

Paul told the Romans to pay their taxes and respect the authorities. The same apostles, when their own rulers ordered them to stop preaching, answered: We must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29). Paying a tax is one thing. Doing evil because a government says to is another.

“The church should care for the poor, not the government.”

The church should. I said so, and so does every page of my teaching. But my people’s tithe for the poor was not optional charity. It was the law of the land. How much should be done through taxes and how much through churches is for you to work out. Just do not use my sentence about Caesar to leave the poor to no one.

Check It Yourself

Look up: Mark 12:13–17.

You will find: the trap, the coin, and my answer.

Then read Genesis 1:26–27 and 1 Samuel 8:10–18, and ask what bears God’s image, and what kings take.

The Short Version

• When asked about taxes to Caesar, I asked whose image was on the coin, and said to give Caesar his coin and God what is God’s.
• What bears God’s image is you. That claim is bigger than any tax.
• I paid the Temple tax so as not to give offense, and I ate with tax collectors.
• Samuel warned that kings would take a tenth and more. The law’s own tithe fed the poor.
• Neither “taxes are theft” nor “keep faith out of politics” is what I said.