Luke 20:1-26

The chief priests confronted Jesus and asked who had given Him authority to perform the miracles He had been doing. Jesus agreed to tell them if they could tell Him whose authority John the Baptist had worked under. They couldn't admit that John's authority came from heaven because they hadn't believed him before. They didn't want to say that his authority came from men because they feared the backlash from the crowds who had believed and followed John. Therefore, their answer to Jesus was that they didn't know. Because they could not answer His question, Jesus declined to answer theirs.

The answer to both questions was the same: both John and Jesus were given authority from God. There was no point in Jesus answering their question directly - since they had not accepted the source of John's authority, they would not accept Jesus' either. They were merely trying to trap Him into saying something they could use against Him later.


Jesus told a parable about a landowner who rented his land to some growers. When harvest time came, he sent one of his servants to collect a portion of the harvest. The growers beat him and sent him away with nothing. This happened two more times before the owner decided to send his son thinking he might command more respect. The growers killed the son in the hopes that they might gain his inheritance. The response of the owner, Jesus said, would be to destroy the growers and give the land to someone else.

This parable was directed at the chief priests to condemn the fact that they were about to have Jesus killed. The history of Israel was that nearly every prophet that God sent was beaten and/or killed. God tried to reach out time and again and was trying once more with His only Son and still they would not listen. Human nature causes us to want to have things our own way. We don't like people telling us what to do and pointing out our shortcomings, but that's just what we need. God uses the people around us to help us see the things we tend to overlook in ourselves.


The chief priests sent people to Jesus to ask Him questions in order to catch Him saying something wrong to use against Him. One question was whether it was right to pay taxes to Caesar. Jesus pointed out that the picture on the coins used to pay the tax was that of Caesar. Therefore, he said that they should give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.

We are told in the Bible that we are to be in the world, but not of it. We have a duty to the kingdom of God, but that cannot overshadow our duties as citizens in this world. So long as the laws of this world don't make us do something that violates God's law, we should obey them - and that includes paying taxes.