Render to God (Luke 20:20-26)

Luke 20:20-26 has the famous answer of Jesus to the question, “Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” with “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  But the main opponents of Jesus were more concerned with Caesar’s kingdom than God’s kingdom.  Jesus asks them to show Him a denarius, which highlighted this fact.  And He asked about the likeness and inscription on the denarius — which was a likeness of Caesar and his inscription.  But human beings have the likeness of God.  Thus the most important part of Jesus’ answer is that we are to render to God the things that are God’s — especially ourselves.  And this is what Jesus did for us.

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