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 Dean wrote:

Taken out of context it can mean whatever you want it to mean, that's the point of it:

 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, "Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the tribute money." And they brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, "Whose is this image and superscription?"
They say unto him, "Caesar's."  Then saith he unto them, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's"

It was a trick answer to a trick question.

I agree.

Actually, this conversation ended up inspiring part of a blog post I am working on, which I am calling "Five Misunderstood Non-Violent Resistance Teachings of Jesus" - I thought I'd share what I've got for "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s":
This statement is commonly used
as a sort of proof that Jesus was for "separation of church and state" -
or to put it in other words, a depoliticization of Jesus.  The message
many would desire us to take from this teaching of Jesus was that we
should not concern ourselves with political things, but concentrate on
spiritual matters so we can "go to heaven" (which, by the way, is not a Biblical concept).

But
there are a number of problems with this interpretation of the scenario
in this passage.  The larger passage shows us that the officials of the
religious authority complex were looking for a way to arrest Jesus, and
were planning to catch Jesus in his own words.  What this indicates is
that when they asked Jesus if it was right to pay the imperial tax, they
expected Jesus to answer in a way that would implicate him in treason
so that he could be arrested on the spot.  For Jesus to answer in the
affirmative would have negated his teachings up to this point, but to
answer in the negative would result in an end to his movement.  So Jesus
had to come up with a clever answer to get out of this trap that they
had set.

When you put Jesus statement above into the context, you
find some interesting things - first of which is the fact that Jesus
asks someone to bring him a denarius - the coin which would have been
used for this particular tax.  What's interesting is that Jesus didn't have
a denarius of his own.  Why wouldn't Jesus have one of his own sitting
in his own pocket - why would he have to ask someone to bring him one?
A denarius bore a picture of
Tiberius on the front with the inscription: "Caesar Augustus Tiberius,
son of the Divine Augustus".  This inscription indicated the divinity of
Caesar - he was to be regarded as a god in the Roman culture of the
empire cult.  This did not mesh well with Jewish beliefs, which included
a little command that went "you shall have no other gods before me" and
another command about not making graven images.  To even possess this
coin could be seen as idolatry to a Jew.  So Jesus didn't even have one
on him!

Additionally, the way Jesus words his statement in Mark 12:17
is very interesting.  He starts his statement with: "give back to
Caesar what is Caesar's".  The question this statement raises is: what
belongs to Caesar?  In other words - some things don't belong to him.  Also, how is it that you're giving back what already belonged to him?

The
way Jesus' statement is worded indicates that if you have received
benefits from Caesar, you should pay him back according to your debt. 
In other words, if you want to protest the unjust taxes, you have no
right to do so if you are living off of the benefits of the government. 
If you want to protest the unjust system, you should remove yourself
completely from the system first - which we see that Jesus has done,
since he possesses no money at the time he is asked this question.

Mohandas K. Gandhi wrote about this passage:

 Jesus
evaded the direct question put to him because it was a trap. He was in
no way bound to answer it. He therefore asked to see the coin for taxes.
And then said with withering scorn, "How can you who traffic in
Caesar's coins and thus receive what to you are benefits of Caesar's
rule refuse to pay taxes?" Jesus' whole preaching and practice point
unmistakably to noncooperation, which necessarily includes nonpayment of
taxes.

The second half of the statement in Mark 12:17
is also very interesting - Jesus says to give to God what is God's. 
This statement is a parallel statement - in the first half of the
statement, Jesus says to give a coin which bears the image of Caesar
back to Caesar.  In the second half of the statement, he makes a
parallel statement - the Jewish belief is that all people were made in
the image of God.  As the coin bears the image of Caesar, so all people
bear the image of God.  So what Jesus is saying in this statement is
that we should give the whole of our being over to God!  This was a
radical message of resistance, because Jesus was saying that Caesar's
authority was limited, and God's authority was unlimited!

Dale Glass-Hess wrote:

 It
is inconceivable to me that Jesus would teach that some spheres of
human activity lie outside the authority of God. Are we to heed Caesar
when he says to go to war or support war-making when Jesus says in other
places that we shall not kill? No! My perception of this incident is
that Jesus does not answer the question about the morality of paying
taxes to Caesar, but that he throws it back on the people to decide.

Edited by dtguitarfan - October 24 2013 at 05:42