• Should You Pay Your Taxes?
    Awake!—2003

    • Think about the admonition Jesus gave to his disciples. He knew that his Jewish countrymen bitterly resented the taxes imposed by Rome. Despite this, Jesus urged: “Pay back Caesar’s things to Caesar, but God’s things to God.” (Mark 12:17) Interestingly, Jesus advocated paying tax to the very regime that would shortly execute him.

  • Should You Pay Your Taxes?
    Awake!—2003

    • Jesus’ counsel to pay “Caesar’s things to Caesar” was not necessarily limited to paying taxes. (Matthew 22:21) The Critical and Exegetical Hand-Book to the Gospel of Matthew, by Heinrich Meyer, explains: “By [Caesar’s things] . . . we are not to understand merely the civil tax, but everything to which Caesar was entitled in virtue of his legitimate rule.”