Transcription
If Christ is King, how should the Christian consider the kingdoms of this world? What does the Bible teach us about human authority and what it means to love our neighbors and our enemies? Before we Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, let us know what it means to Render unto God what is God's.
This is the Biblical Anarchy podcast, the modern prophetic voice against war and Empire. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Biblical Anarchy podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute. This week and every week on Biblical Anarchy, we seek to live counterculture to the Empire of man and to instead seek the kingdom of God by unpacking what the Bible teaches about government, authority, and human relationships. I am your host, Jacob Daniel.
Today, I want to talk about taxes. I want to ask the question, as Christians, are we supposed to pay taxes? What does the Bible say about this? Well, it's a little complicated. And that's not to say that it's complicated because the Bible isn't clear on the subject, or that I think the Bible supports taxation and I'm trying to weasel my way around it to make the Bible say something that it doesn't. Rather, I would say it's complicated because we need to understand how to read the Bible and what the Bible fundamentally is, and what all of its different parts are, before we can really answer questions like this accurately.
See, the Bible isn't, except in rare cases, a list of do's and don'ts. The Bible is God's word, and God speaks through many different means. We have God speaking through stories, God speaking through prose or poetry or historical exposition or specific commands he gave or letters that people wrote to one another. And we need to, when we're reading the Bible, start by understanding the book that we're reading and who wrote it, who it was written to, and the literary style, and what exactly what category are we going to place this text in, and then go from there into a careful exegesis of what that text is saying.
There's also a need to define terms. And I think to start out here, I want to have a frank conversation about taxation and really define what taxation is. The Oxford dictionary seems like as good a place as any to start, and it defines taxation as "a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions."
Now, I would suggest that the key word here in this definition is the word "compulsory." And to really fully define taxation, we're going to have to go into defining what compulsory means. So, compulsory means that it's required by law, or it is obligatory. Required by law would mean or imply that you were legally required by the state to obey, or you will face some sort of punishment as defined by the law and then enforced by one of the state's enforcement agencies. So, this means that taxation is the state coming in and demanding that you provide funds for whatever it wants to spend money on, and it's doing so at the point of a gun. And even with fines, the gun is only a step or two removed. I mean, simply ask the question of, if the government levies the fine and you refuse to pay it, they might stack those fines over and over again, but eventually the fines stop, and agents of the state are going to come looking for you, and they're going to incarcerate you. And if you resist those men, well, let's just say that I wouldn't recommend doing that as a matter of preserving your own life, because those men are going to be armed and they are going to be authorized to use deadly force to make you comply with them.
So, this is why libertarians and anarchists often say that at the end of every law is a man with a gun who is compelling you to obey it. And this applies as well for taxes. Here in the U.S., thousands of people face fines or imprisonment every year just for tax evasion. And even more than that number are many people, hundreds of thousands, who are under threat of punishment if they don't come up with arrangements to pay what they currently owe the IRS or the state or local government.
Rothbard, as many other anarchists, have made the comparison that the state, in this aspect, is very much like a mafia who are threatening to break in your windows if you don't pay for their "quote-unquote" protection. And thus, when we do a thorough analysis of what taxation is, it doesn't really seem like taxation is a model of fundraising that is really compatible with the sort of descriptions and virtues of leadership and leaders acting as the servants that Christ and his Apostles taught.
But what does the Bible say about how we should act towards tyranny, and then also specifically about taxation itself? To set the stage for understanding what the Bible wants us to do when we are under the threat of a tyrannical government or we are being asked to pay taxes, I want to dive into several biblical passages and themes that'll help us to begin unpacking the subject.
The first theme that I want to get at is that, first and foremost, we are always called as Christians to bear our cross. I think that a perfect example of this is the story of Joseph. And the story of Joseph is really a prime model of what we are supposed to do in the face of overwhelming mistreatment and tyranny and injustice that is applied to our lives by the people around us. I mean, just think about Joseph being sold into slavery, betrayed by his brothers, and then excelling in his position with his new slave master, only to be betrayed by the slave master and master's wife and thrown in jail. And just the many years that Joseph had to sort of patiently wait and push through that injustice upon injustice that was put upon him. But Joseph had to do that for God to be able to use Joseph for the plans that God had made. And as Joseph then later on said, you know what, he was talking to his brothers, "What you meant for evil, God meant for good." And it is through bearing our suffering and bearing our injustices, in the same way that Jesus bore the cross, that God can transcend these injustices if we have the Holy Spirit strengthening us to obey God and to listen for his voice, to watch for the ways in which his plan is unfolding when we are in those situations, rather than trying to correct the injustice and take matters into our own hands.
This is similar to another story, Peter in the garden, where we see what happens when someone who's trying to act in a way that, on the surface, might seem like they're acting justly or in accordance with moral principles, but is rather rebuked by Jesus for a failure to obey and to really, I think, a failure to have faith in the moment. Peter is taking his sword out and cutting off the ear of the high priest. Peter is not trusting in what Jesus has told him, which he had told Peter and the apostles many times that he was going to be betrayed, that he was going to be handed over to the Romans and crucified, and then also foretold that he would be raised again. But Peter is caught up in the moment of this great betrayal of injustice and wants to take matters into his own hands and to bring justice and to bring peace to a situation through the sword and through his own efforts, rather than relying on God. And this is why Jesus rebukes him and says that, "If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword."
The story of Joseph and the story of Peter in the garden really kind of provide a juxtaposition there. In fact, Jesus himself many times would tell slaves to admonish their masters and to serve them well. And very key and central to the ministry of Jesus was the teachings on being a servant and having a servant mentality. And this sort of archetype of overcoming evil and overcoming injustice by sort of transmuting it through diligent and spirit-led service and doing good even to those who persecute us. And that it is through this good that we do onto others, this love for our neighbors and our enemies, that not immediately necessarily, but ultimately God uses us and uses circumstances and turns them for good, for not only ourselves, but for those around us and for the world. It is also a witness for those around us when we do this, because it is a display of the fruits of the spirit. And these are part of our testimony to those around us, and it is what helps enable us to spread the gospel.
So, with this in mind, when we read passages about how we should pay taxes to whom taxes are due, such as in Romans 13 or Matthew 22, that is prescribed in the context that Paul and Jesus are saying that we should pay people what is theirs, or pay people what they are owed. And also in the context of how we are to overcome oppression, evil, and hardship, not by overcoming those things with more of the same, but rather instead of overcoming evil with evil, we overcome evil with good. So, there's sort of a dual teaching here: one about how we respond to persecution and to those who harm us, as well as one about what people are owed and how we pay back to people and to God what they are due. And so, we have to try to unpack both of those at the same time. And it's complicated because there are many times where there are multiple things happening at once within the text, where God is working a greater good through the evil actions of men. And what we have to be careful to do is to separate the good that God does from the evil that men do, and to not act as if the good that God creates makes the evil any less evil.
When Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery, that was evil on their part, and it can by no means be described as good that the brothers sold Joseph into slavery. These were the evil actions of the brothers. It was fueled by their jealousy and by their hate. And it is only because of the sovereignty of God that their evil was able to be transmuted into something good, into a good outcome by God. I would levy that in many ways, submitting to government sometimes, or submitting to paying our taxes, is just another one of those many things where a Christian is called to bear some sort of injustice, but to do so in the pursuit of a greater good.
But then, how do we establish what is normative to God's moral decree? If we acknowledge that there are things that God works out of evil for his purposes, for our good, but that they are separate from God's moral decree? We know of God's sovereign decree from many passages in the Bible. But one of my favorites would be Daniel 4:25: "All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and no one can ward off his hand or say to him, 'What have you done?'" It reminds me of Romans 9, with Romans 9 as well, where Paul talks about God's sovereignty as the great Potter, and "who are we, O man, to question God?" So, we see that there are multiple wills or multiple decrees of God that we have to recognize and work to define. And we have to separate God's sovereign decree, as in the things that are to come to pass according to that which he has predestined, that which he has foresaw and is actively at work in turning to his ultimate plans and ultimate good, and to separate those from his moral decree, which is what we need to be preaching as what is morally normative, or what is morally right and wrong.
Now, I also want to be clear here. While I do think that an important element to the Christian faith is being able to nobly bear suffering and to overcome it through radical love and a sort of peaceful attitude towards persecution, there are times for disobedience or for pushing back against the tyranny of those who laugh in the face of God's moral decrees. And there are times that we are called to act in direct disobedience to God by the state authorities. And we see this in the Bible, such as in passages like Daniel 3, or with Moses and Pharaoh, or the wise men not reporting back to Herod, or the apostles preaching the gospel to the point of martyrdom. And so, while yes, there are those times where we are called to take on our suffering or even subjugation nobly and trust that we are being used by God and that God hasn't forsaken us, but that he is at work even in the midst of our suffering, there are other times where we are called to take a stand and we are called to say, "No, we will not bow to the authorities of this world." And like Peter says in Acts 5, that "we must obey God rather than man."
If this seems to be confusing, or seems to be just maybe contrary to your sensibilities, well, that's not too surprising. I mean, we are called by God to a higher calling than that of just following our hearts or following what seems natural to us. There are many times in the Old and the New Testament where either God or Jesus is calling us to be holy and to seek a life of righteousness, and we are to be set apart and to not conform to the ways of this world. And the wisdom of God seems like foolishness to man. We have to clearly separate our reaction to what the kingdoms of men do and what we morally stand on as far as what is right and wrong for those kingdoms to do, and to also understand their place within God's creation.
To bring this back to the subject of government and taxation, I would again remind everyone of Romans 13. And how that passage, I think, is an illustration of this, as it is describing in certain parts of that chapter our responses to the government authorities, and that we are to be subject to them, and to again, to say to pay taxes to whom taxes are owed, honor to whom honor is owed, etc. "If you owe anyone anything, make right on that." Interestingly enough, later on it says in Romans 13, "Owe no one anything except to love them," which is an interesting follow-up that people often forget. But as much as it does tell us to be subject to the governing authorities, Romans 13 is also prescribing what the nature of those governing authorities are. Again, that they are not a terror to good works, as they wield the sword, but are rather a terror to those who do evil.
But the part where it talks about paying to the, you know, those taxes who taxes are owed, or tribute to whom tribute is owed, honor to whom honor is owed, we see this echoed. It was rather an echoing of the Matthew 22 passage, which people under commonly know as the "Render unto Caesar" passage. And this is a passage I want to take a little bit of time to unpack. In the show notes, I'm going to have a link to an article that was written by Jeff Barr, and it was adapted from a lecture he gave at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and you can find it on mises.org. And he goes into this passage, which he calls "the most misunderstood passage in the New Testament."
Now, the passage goes something like this, starting in verse 15: "Then the Pharisees went and consulted among themselves how to ensnare him in his speech. Him being Jesus. And they sent to him their disciples and the Herodians, saying, 'Master, we know that thou art a true speaker and teaches the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man, for thou dost not regard the person of men. Tell us therefore, what dost thou think? Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?' But Jesus, knowing their wickedness, said, 'Why do you tempt me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin of the tribute.' And they offered him a penny, a denarius or denarius. And Jesus said to them, 'Whose image and inscription is this?' And they say to him, 'Caesar's.' And then he said to them, 'Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' Hearing this, they wondered and leaving him, went their ways."
So, now that I've read the whole text, let's kind of take this line by line. So, it starts out with the Pharisees saying that they're trying to trap him. And so, this passage actually is in three out of the four Gospels. And in each one of them, this passage takes place after Jesus entered into Jerusalem and had crowds of people declaring him as the king or the Messiah. The Pharisees and Jewish leaders were obviously seething at Jesus and were trying to find ways to trap him. And the easiest way would be to get him in trouble with the Roman authorities or to find a way to discredit him among his followers.
Now, I also want to go into some of the historical context here, which Jeff Barr, in the article that I had mentioned, does a really good job at unpacking. So, back in 6 A.D., the Romans had imposed a census tax on the Jewish people, which the Jewish people weren't exactly a fan of. They very vocally complained about this and, you know, implored that they would at least have some kind of reduction of it. And then there were tax revolts that were led, one by Judas who was a Galilean, and there would be many tax revolts that would take place after this as well, including after when Jesus died. The Judas the Galilean is ascribed as teaching that taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery, which is rather interesting. I think this sort of like background of tensions with the Romans and tax revolting and protesting was in the background of this.
So, the question about, you know, "Is it right to pay tribute to Caesar?" If Jesus would have just came out and flat said no, well, hey, it'd be easy for the Pharisees to go, "Look at this teacher who is inciting that we should not pay taxes and should disobey the Roman state." He'd get in trouble with the authorities, and the Pharisees win. So, what was at the root of these tensions with the Romans and the protests that they had against the taxes being imposed upon them? Honestly, at the root of it was idolatry. I mean, the undertone of this could be seen back just a few years before Jesus started his ministry. Statues of Caesar were constructed overnight and placed in the Fortress of Antonia, which was a fortress that was directly adjacent to the Jewish temple. And Jewish law forbade both the creation of graven images and the introduction of those into the holy city of Jerusalem. Basically, the thing turned into almost a bloodbath, and Pilate had to remove them to avoid a major conflict.
This idolatry was also present in the coin that was used by the Romans and by Caesar himself. In ancient Greece, *phoros*, which is the Greek term used here, the name for the membership dues paid to Athens by members of the Italian League, and it was formed to offer protection from the Persian forces, and it could be paid in military equipment or money, and usually it was paid in money. Now, note that in the passage itself, it states that the Pharisees were with the Herodians. The Herodians, as the name sort of implies, were like the political house of Herod. And so, their support of Herod made them supporters of their own. And they thought that this question again was going to brilliantly trap Jesus into either coming off as a Roman sympathizer and losing a lot of his followers, or he'd say what the crowd wanted him to say, but they'd have dirt, they'd have what they needed to get him in trouble with the Romans.
But note that Jesus answers them in the way he does. He calls them hypocrites and says, "Why do you tempt me, you hypocrite?" And then he asks them to bring him a coin and asks, "Whose face is on the coin?" Now, why is this his answer? What is Jesus getting at here? Well, the coin obviously had Caesar's image graven on the coin, so right away we know it's a graven image, which is something that obviously is not allowed in Jewish law. And religiously, but it's worse than that. Even the Roman coins from this period had the image of Emperor Tiberius with the inscription, "Caesar Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus." Basically, it was likening Caesar to being the son of a God. And then the real part where the hypocrisy kicks in here is that the fact that they're able to produce this coin is just Jesus reminding them that he knows that they're in bed with Rome. So, if they're going to try to get him in trouble or try to point to the fact that they would try to label him as a Roman sympathizer, when they're the ones who are holding on to the idolatrous Roman coin, things that you get from dealing with Rome, the people would be able to see right through that as soon as they were asked to produce that coin.
And Jesus's answer, of course, leaves them wondered, and all they can do is walk away. And I always imagine them walking away with their heads hung low because of just how brilliantly Jesus owns them without even really having to say anything. Also, when he says, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's," right? He follows it up with, "Give to God what is God's." What is Jesus getting at there? He's saying, "You dummies, this coin is idolatrous. And you know what you're supposed to be giving to God? Your worship. And you will bow to no one other than God, and you will not construct any graven image." They're not the Pharisees are trying to get Jesus in trouble by saying he's not giving to Caesar what is Caesar's. And many statists and taxation apologists will point to this passage and just completely miss the point. It's not about giving to Caesar what is Caesar's. It's about, "You better be very sure you're giving to God what is God's," which is your worship, which is to follow his moral decree. Remember, we cannot serve two masters.
And first and foremost, as always, when we're dealing with any issue that entangles us with the state, with the kingdoms of this world, we have to be on guard for idolatry. And very often, when the kingdoms of this world issue taxes, they're issuing it with their own currency that they have decreed that you must use by fiat. And the state is again, in these instances, acting as a moral arbiter. And beyond just the very explicit examples of idolatry, we can point to like the inscriptions upon the graven coin here, there's a lot of implicit idolatry with the assumed authority that the state tries to declare it has when it issues things like currency and taxes and the supposed right to rule and the right to pass laws that can define what is right and wrong.
Furthermore, then, beyond idolatry, let's look at again the issue of taxation, just compared to what God has declared as morally normative. And I would levy that taxation is an institution that is fundamentally extortion. It's theft by means of coercion and threats of violence. And I think all three of those things are at odds with God's moral decree. And it is not enough to point to passages like Matthew 22 or Romans 13 as an attempt to debunk this, because as we've clearly demonstrated here, those passages are not Jesus saying, "Pay your taxes. It's a wonderful thing." "Render unto Caesar" is not about paying your taxes. And what is Caesar's? Like, let's really ask that question, what is Caesar's? And what is Caesar owed? What does anyone owe? Again, this is echoing what then Paul later says in Romans 13, to pay everyone that which you owe them.
But what does the Bible say about what is normative? About what we owe people and what we can charge people? But let's think back to the passage in Matthew 20 that we talked about a couple episodes ago, and think about how what was described as normative in that passage was that which you voluntarily agreed to in exchange and trade, and that which you homesteaded. But you couldn't demand by force or by some petition to some sort of plea of equality or fairness, or etc., to be given the same as everyone else, or to be given something just because it was given to somebody else. We see this echoed in other passages. We can go to Romans 4, where he says, "Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as is due." And Jeremiah chapter 22: "Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his upper rooms by injustice, who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages." See, there's a lot of different passages here that are really honing in on the same thing. We, yes, we are called to give to people what they are due. But what they are due is not what they decree. What is what they are due under the threat of force? Like, if a mugger comes to you in the middle of the street and demands that you give him your wallet, that doesn't mean he's actually owed your wallet. That just means that you might give him your wallet because you would rather not risk death or bodily harm at that instance. But the mugger isn't owed that which is yours.
But if, let's say, that person came up to me and said, "Hey, you came by my store last week and you bought something from me, but you didn't pay for it the whole way, and I need you to pay up now." Well, that's different. Now I owe him, and I need to pay him what is owed. Or if someone did a service to me, like someone comes and mows my lawn, I don't pay him right away, I owe him. I need to pay my debts to this person and not let it go unpaid, because that would be a form of theft.
But what is Caesar owed? Is Caesar owed anything? Was there any voluntary contract or transaction that we engaged with Caesar? If we allow people, just because they put upon themselves the title of emperor or president or senator or police officer or government or the state, just because they put these labels on them, do they suddenly have the right to laugh in the face of God's moral decrees, to be held with some sort of special exemption or privilege, to be above God's law, that they can demand from people service or money or the or things that they own that they haven't voluntarily agreed to give through some mutual exchange of mutual benefit? No. The Bible does not support this.
And while again, there might be times where we are put in situations where we're going to be kind of forced into paying taxes, and there is a quite question about how Christians should respond in the face of persecution, and I've touched on that. And I think that there is a sound argument there that rather than engaging in what the state calls tax evasion and being antagonistic in our response to taxation, there is something to bearing that cross in a certain sense and paying it. But that doesn't mean that to do so means to pay it and then the subject is closed. Because we can pay our taxes and we can obey the authorities that we are we find ourselves in subjugation to, and do so insofar as we're not being asked to disobey anything that God has told us. But that doesn't mean that we can't at the same time hold opinions about how those authorities are acting outside of that which God has described as morally normative by his moral decree. Instead, if we're supposed to pray for our leaders, we should be praying that they repent and that they turn back to God and that they no longer act in defiance of God's moral decree. We should pray that the moral authorities actually live up to what Romans 13 says, and that they are no longer a terror to good works, but rather only a terror to those who do evil.
In Matthew 20, this was a rejection of that your wages had to be the same as everyone else's. But in Romans 4, the wages are his due. And going back to the parable of the workers in the vineyard, the vineyard owner definitely owed all of the workers wages. Although he had the right, because of the arrangements that they had had, to pay them all the same amount, even the ones who worked less. They were all owed a wage. It would have been theft if he would have tricked them into coming and working his vineyard and then paid them all nothing. He definitely owed them something. And then again, in Jeremiah 22, "Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his upper rooms by injustice, and who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages." This to me, I mean, it just sounds like we're talking about the state here. It sounds like we're talking about, "Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness." If you build something on the back of that which you haven't earned, but that which you have extorted from people, that sounds a lot like taxation is an introduction into slavery, doesn't it? And really, taxation is just modern-day slavery.
I would then argue that what is normative in the Bible is free markets, or capitalism. It's private property and private ownership. And that people are not owed anything except that which they are not owed anything except that they are not aggressed against by their fellow neighbors and their property rights are not violated. They are owed whatever is theirs and whatever they homestead and whatever they voluntarily obtain through trade. Jesus, therefore, was not prescribing that we give taxes to Caesar as a moral norm, but that Caesar is a false god, an idol, who owes nothing. And rather, God is to whom all is owed. And those who perform services that we consent to, and that God ordains over those services should exist, and those people should be paid. But they should be compensated based upon what they voluntarily agree to make through voluntary transactions, the same way the rest of us get by. We do this through the market. We do this through natural competency hierarchies and meritocracies. We do this through negotiations and contracts. And we don't do this by the point of a gun.
Again, we're called not to conform to the ways of this world. And I would argue that if there is such a thing as godly governance, that that government is foreign to the world, in the same way that God's ways are foolishness to man. The ways that we as Christians should seek to live out those calls to live at peace and to love our neighbors and to be light and salt. When that comes to the subject of taxation, what, while we should bear all injustice nobly, we should also call injustice for the injustice that it is. And we should be instead prescribing to society a better way. And we should be prescribing to society and showing society that we can find ways to provide the things that the state declares that it needs to rob us and threaten us with violence to construct, that we can construct these things without the state, and we can do it better than the state.
If we're going to build our house on a firm foundation and not on the sand where we are going to be swept up by the waves, then we have to advocate for the building of society on the back of a moral foundation of peace and voluntary transactions and trade, and not a system that is built upon slavery, whether that is through conscription of people's bodies directly by binding them with whips and shames, or by constricting them through a system such as taxation. And especially to avoid the pitfalls of idolatry that come with such a system.
So, I think we've shown that today. I think we've shown that Jesus wasn't telling us that we owe Caesar anything, that we instead owe God everything. And that fits in really well, I think, with the theme of this podcast. And I really was excited to get to this episode because, you know, in that little introduction when it says, "Before we Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, let's Render unto God what is God's." And I think that that is such an important part of this conversation, that we need to respond to people who raise this question the same way Jesus responded to the Pharisees. It's like, "You want to talk about paying taxes to the state? Are we giving God all of our worship? Are we giving God all of our love and all of our mind and all of our heart and all of our strength? And are we seeking to live his moral decrees out as consistently as we can?" Because that is the foundation that we have to have as Christians and as the church.
And another point that I didn't get too much into, but through fiat currency, the government printing money, and through taxation, the state uses that money to do things. Things that you wouldn't voluntarily give them the money to do if you had a choice in it. If you think about all the money that goes towards abortion, you know, the money that goes towards the wars that are killing millions of innocent people across the world, right? The money that's just going to line the pockets of the ruling class and to exacerbate the tensions of inequalities and power dynamics in our country, in society broadly speaking. These are not things that Christians should support either. And if these institutions had to fend for themselves and had to earn the money that they spend, that kind of accountability, the sort of accountability that the free market brings, that is what the Bible really preaches when it comes to the norms of what property rights are and what people are owed. And I think that we need to stand firm on that.
So, that concludes today's episode. I hope that this was insightful and that you were able to get something from it. As always, if you enjoy this content, if you were able to share it around on Facebook, on Twitter, with your friends and family, and leave a review, it's always a big help for us because it boosts those algorithms and our exposure and all that. As always, also please check out the rest of the Christians for Liberty Network if you haven't already, because we've got a great lineup of podcasts and people producing amazing content. And so, I hope you will consider going and listening and supporting their shows as well. Alright, that's it. We will catch you on the next episode.
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