Caesar’s Shame

Caesar’s Shame

What are taxes? A form of theft. Why do we pay them? To shine a light on rulers’ wickedness, so that they might be ashamed and repent. 

If this sounds a bit like tax zealotry, is a little too “sons of thunder-ish,” or seems a whitewashed form of “don’t tread on me,” allow me to explain. 

The Temple Tax in Capernaum

In Matthew 17:24–27, Jesus and His disciples arrive at Capernaum, a town steeped in paganism. There, temple tax collectors demand payment for the annual atonement from the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world—a striking irony. (1) This cosmically and comically absurd demand represents an upside-down world of demonic, pagan, worldly thought. The tax requires the ultimate forgiver—Jesus Christ—to purchase forgiveness. You can hardly imagine a more perverse scene.

Peter, confronted by the tax collectors, affirms that Jesus pays the two-drachma temple tax, which was a flat fee for everyone. Yet Jesus doesn’t engage the tax collector at all. Instead, he pulls Peter aside and asks, “From whom do the kings of the earth collect tools or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?”

Here, Jesus makes a clear distinction between the servants of the kingdom of heaven and the slaves of wickedness. Peter answers correctly: the kings tax “strangers” (ἀλλότριος, allotrios), those outside their household—in other words, people from a different kingdom.

The Biblical Case Against Taxation as Theft

Jesus’ exchange with Peter illuminates two important realities:

First, paying taxes signals subjugation. The taxpayer is part of a conquered people living under oppressive rule.

Second, tax beneficiaries and tax victims are not of the same group, class, or family. One is the oppressor, the other the oppressed.

Lest you think I sound like a critical race theorist, this distinction relates to a person’s actions—not their heritage, economic status, race, nationality, or ethnicity. Economist Murray Rothbard points this out in a powerful way: every tax harms one group by taking their property, while benefiting another—namely, the tax collectors and their cronies.

Samuel’s Warning and Ahab’s Wickedness

Modern economists aren’t the only ones to recognize this. The prophet Samuel tells of how the “kings of the earth” will seize the wealth of others. In 1 Samuel 8, the people of Israel demand that Yawheh install one of these “kings of the earth.” The attitudes of these rulers are put on full display in Psalm 2:

“The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,“Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” (Psalm 2:2–3 ESV)

In short, these rulers reject God, Christ, and His moral law, especially those against stealing and coveting. Samuel spells this out: 

“So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day” (1 Samuel 8:10-18. ESV, emphasis mine).

The repeated word “take” exposes their thievery. This thievery is perhaps best illustrated in the wickedness of Ahab against Naboth—stealing his vineyard and orchestrating his murder—an act that ends his household’s abominable reign.

When Jesus reminds Peter in Capernaum that earthly kings tax outsiders while exempting their own, perhaps Ahab’s greed came to mind. Regardless, one thing is clear: These and their households are at the front of the line in the tax beneficiary class, along with their favored servants, who are often even more degenerate than the kings themselves. (2) And Yahweh condemns such behaviors, whether kings rise by decree or democracy.

The Hypocrisy of Exempting the Sons

Jesus brilliantly highlights these scriptures with a rhetorical question to Peter, asking him to affirm, “Then the sons are exempt.” (Matthew 17:26. ESV) In other words, are the sons of the wicked exempted from the need to pay for atonement? Yes, the kings of the world not only tax others while sparing their own, but they also deny their need for atonement. They refuse to acknowledge their own sins or those of their sons. This hypocrisy is staggering: they demand money for the atonement of the spotless Lamb of God, but they deny their own need for forgiveness. Jesus exposes how audacious, hypocritical, and blasphemous the their actions are. They should be ashamed. Alas, they aren’t. 

Why Pay Taxes? Shame and Staying Out of Trouble

We can now understand the only two reasons Scripture gives us for paying taxes—and it’s not to build roads, pay for wars, or care for the poor, needy, or helpless. They are: to shame oppressive rulers into serving the Lord, and to avoid trouble.

Shaming the Oppressors

Paying taxes, though oppressive, exposes rulers’ sin, urging them to repentance. Romans 12:17-21 calls us to be at peace with all men, even with kings, without seeking revenge for thievery or other wrongs done to us.  By paying, we expose their coercion and threats, heaping shame on them like “burning coals” on their heads (Romans 12:20). Wise rulers will see the folly of extractionary taxation heed Psalm 2’s warning:

“Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” (Psalm 2:10-12. ESV).

If the rulers stopped lording their power over citizens, ceased taxation, and stopped favoring their own households at the expense of others, they would align with God’s commands on theft and covetousness, lightening the burden for all. 

Avoiding Trouble

Jesus’ second reason is simpler: pay taxes to stay out of trouble, because we’ve got work to do! He tells Peter to pay the two drachmas for one purpose: “so that we do not offend them” (Matthew 17:27). Put in a modern way, pay taxes to avoid audits, tax courts, or prison.... Taxation is coercive, not voluntary. (Test this in a democracy, and you’ll find yourself in the clink!) Pay the correct amount of their ever-debasing currency, full of dross as it is (Isaiah 1:21, 22), and focus on your calling as kingdom citizens. Notice that Peter only engaged the tax collector with a single word : “yes.” So dear brothers and sisters, render to Caesar what is his: shame. And give to God what is His: glory and honor. 

Praying for Repentance

Will the kings of the earth ever repent? Only the LORD knows. Those who don’t will anger the Son, while those who do will relent in their taxation, answering the prayers of the saints, captured so beautifully by Paul: 

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:1-3. ESV)

Put simply, our prayer is that we as the Church would lead peaceful, dignified, quiet, and godly lives, free from confiscatory taxes and imprisonment, and free to be fully human—to add, to multiply, to move freely throughout the earth, to subdue, and to rule over all land and living things (Genesis 1:27, 28)—rather than ruled by other men who reject Yahweh’s commands against coveting and stealing. 

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Notes:

1.  More on the importance of Capernaum and its association with the kingdom of darkness can be found in the work of Michael Heiser and his book, The Unseen Realm (2015), and in video form at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9EW3ORjpU8 

2.  The British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) is a 20^th-century case in point. As a servant to the power of British authority, he used the lavish financial rewards of being associated with the ruling class to appropriate child sex slaves throughout the course of his travels. This is a fact that his brother, Geoffrey Langdon Keynes (1887-1982) attempted to conceal as the custodian of his personal papers and letters at King’s College, Cambridge. John Maynard’s unashamed degeneracy has recently been exposed by Edward Fuller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZYAFaHSsZY&list=PLALopHfWkFlFCa-HMK76xvkg0tTXKuaU9&index=4 and in a more abbreviated fashion by Tho Bishop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VwgiQ8VjOE