M'Lady Gwenhwfir's Notes on Mt. 22:15-22

1) Since the Pharisees intend to entrap, it is ironic that they tell the truth in their flattery.What is the impact of bringing in Herodians?
2)See the recent Chr. Century for a nice piece on linking the image on the coin with the image of god on us/in us in baptism-also the word, character has the sense of being stamped, like a coin.
3)The loathsome task would be the daily minimum wage, so about &55.This was a flashpoint in Israel, as it was a tax to the occupying forces of Rome.Notice that the word for the tax, a census, is a big issue in the history of Israel as a problem, as it often led to corvee labor, thus enslaving the former slaves.
4) Even though this has it locus on taxation, one should be careful to make it a blank screen upon which we can project our views of contemporary taxation as a way to wave a political flag that merely uses the text as a launching pad.
5)hypocrite has a sense of being an actor with a classical mask, as in its root actor, dissembler/role player.that could be a good place to focus. See Thomas Long sermon, something like 2 and 1/2 cheers for hypocrites
6) One may want to notice that Jesus does not produce a coin, for rhetorical effect or out of poverty, but the critics have one at the ready. (Was its possession unclean?)
7)The image was probably idolatrous and called the emperor son of the divine Augustus, note that calling Jesus Savior, Son of God and other titles held by the emperor would place Christians into conflict with roman civic allegiance.
8) One way to read the riposte is to see that god's sovereign prerogatives do give some room to the state. (One could examine the word what belongs to Caesar some attention, perhaps). One needs ot be careful not to make this a plea for American separation of church and state, but one could link it to Paul's view of the state in Rom. 13.
9) It is a pt. that echoes through the centuries what are the things that are god's to be given/ When one consider the psalm, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, we run directly into a claim for our lives in their entirety, so our easy compartments fail to close against the claim.
10) Jesus does disappoint those looking for him to urge nothing to be given the sate, perhaps. This is a good example of Jesus not playing traditional power politics but transforming politics, to make the world more human/human a la the ethicist Paul Lehman in the Transformation of Politics (1975, I think)
11) Thoreau in Civ. Disobedience famously said that Jesus left his questioners none the wiser as to the tax issue as to a method of determination.
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