FOR
BECAUSE OF THIS YOU ALSO PAY TAXES: dia touto gar kai phorous
teleite (2PPAI): (Ezra
4:13,20;
6:8;
Nehemiah 5:4;
Matthew 17:24-27;
22:17-21;
Mark 12:14-17;
Luke 20:21-26;
23:2)
Pay (5055)
(teleo
from télos = end, goal) means to make an end or to
accomplish, complete something and by implication as used in the present
context means to pay off in full things such as taxes.
Taxes (5411)
(phoros from phéro = to bring) describes particularly what is brought and
here describes taxes or tributes imposed upon persons and property. Phoros
is distinct from toll (telos) which was a fee usually levied on
merchandise and travelers.
Vincent says
teleo (5055)
(cf uses in
Mt 17:24,
Jn 19:28,19:30
["paid in full"],
Jas 2:8), carries "the sense of the
fulfillment of an obligation.”
So part of
what is means to "subject" one's self to governing authorities is to pay
taxes. The Roman historian Tacitus noted that in the A.D. 58 there were
persistent complaints against taxes and the "acquisitiveness" of tax
collectors.
Matthew records the following
event when the Pharisees were testing Jesus trying to trap Him with His own words...
(A disciple of the
Pharisees
and some
Herodians
went to Jesus saying) "Teacher, we know that You are truthful
and teach the way of God in truth, and defer to no one; for You are not
partial to any. 17(Here is the "test") "Tell us therefore, what do You think? Is it
lawful to give a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?"
18 But Jesus perceived their malice, and said, "Why are you testing Me,
you hypocrites (one who pretends to be other than he really is - see study
of Greek word "without
hypocrisy")?
19 "Show Me the coin used for the poll-tax." And they brought Him a
denarius.
20 And He said to them, "Whose likeness and inscription is this?"
21 They said to Him, "Caesar's." Then He said to them, "Then render to
Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are
God's." (Matthew
22:16-21)
R Kent Hughes makes the following comment on Jesus' "test"...
The question was devilishly clever. If Jesus answered no he would be branded a
traitor to Caesar. If he said yes he would be called anti-patriotic, and his
ministry would be discredited. His enemies were sure they had him. But instead
Jesus had them when he answered,
“You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying
the tax” (Matthew 22:18). A hush came over the crowd as Jesus held the coin for
all to see.
Then he asked them,
“‘Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription? ’‘Caesar’s,’ they replied. Then
he said to them, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s’”
(Matthew 22:20, 21).
It was a brilliant answer, and all his critics could do was walk away shaking
their heads in wonder. With this single sentence our Lord established the
validity of human government, while at the same time setting its limits. Caesar
had his image on certain things, and they rightly belonged to him. There is a
proper domain and function for human government. However, God has stamped His
Own image on man (the intellect, the will, and the soul bear the divine stamp).
Thus, man may give outward things to Caesar, but the inner man belongs to God.
Jesus was saying,
“The coin is from the mint of the Roman Empire, but you are from God’s mint. The
coin’s use is determined by its likeness, and your use is determined by the
likeness you bear.”
Jesus’ single sentence is certainly the most important political statement ever
made! (Hughes,
R. K. Romans: Righteousness from heaven. Preaching the Word. Crossway Books
or
Logos)
Ray Pritchard comments that...
human rulers (are) “God’s servants.” As such, they deserve four things from us:
Taxes, revenue, respect, and honor. We may think we are heavily taxed (and we
are), but hardly more so than in the first century. Rome had an income tax, a
head tax, a poll tax, a road tax, a wagon tax, a crop tax, an import tax, an
export tax, a harbor tax, and a bridge tax--to name only a few. The Caesars like
to live in style and it cost a lot of money to maintain that huge empire, so
they taxed their people heavily in order to pay for everything.
Paying taxes is a Christian duty. Tax evasion is not only a crime; it’s also a
sin. Ray Stedman tells how in his early years he found himself frustrated
because he paid so much in taxes to a government that in his opinion wasted most
of the money. So one year he wrote a check to the “Infernal Revenue Service.” It
made him feel better, until they cashed the check. Then he changed it to the
“Eternal Revenue Service” but they still took his money. Finally, he said “I
repented of all my sins and now hope to pay my taxes cheerfully.” Well, most of
us may never get that far. It’s hard to be cheerful about sending that much
money to Springfield and to Washington. But at least we can have the
satisfaction of knowing that when we pay our taxes, we’re doing exactly what
Jesus and Paul told us to do. (Romans
13:1-7: How to be a Godly Rebel)
Taxes are the means of
carrying on responsible government--the state could not exist without them.
Notice that this matter of paying taxes, among other things, is put under the
matter of the realm of conscience. ("for because of this" referring to what he
had just stated in [v5]). That is, Christians (for this whole passage concerns
the attitude of Christians to government) are under a higher law than the world
in regard to the demands of government. The worldling pays his taxes and obeys
the laws largely because he fears the penalty, or he realizes that this is the
only way that law and order can be maintained. But the Christian is put under a
far higher responsibility; he is told to pay these things for the sake of
conscience. That is, he knows that to fail to do this will affect his own
relationship with God.
If he cheats on his income tax, he has grieved the Holy Spirit (Eph 4:30)
and can no longer manifest the indwelling life of Jesus Christ in that ministry
of power and conviction that glorifies God and makes the invisible God visible
to man. If he is unjust in his treatment of government authorities, rude or
crude in his dealings with them, or disrespectful (not giving "respect to
whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due" even through he doesn't
like the man or his motives or methods) he is affecting his conscience and is
under the disapproval of the grieved Holy Spirit within. Christians then in one
sense pay taxes not to the government but to God. The way you treat government
officials is a testimony of whether you are a Christian or not. The way you pay
your taxes, if you pay them, and the way that you pay other revenues, custom
duties, and fees of various sorts, is a testimony -- one way or another -- of
your Christian life.
FOR
RULERS ARE SERVANTS OF GOD: leitourgoi gar theou eisin (3PPAI):
Rulers - Not in the original
Greek but in keeping with the context it is added by the NAS and by
several other translations. Note that in the NAS you can discern "added
words" (almost always to make the text flow more smoothly) because they
are in italics, a feature not present in most other modern translations,
including the otherwise excellent ESV.
Servants (3011) (leitourgos
from léïtos = of the people [NIDNTT says it from "laos" = people] + érgon = work)
is literally a worker of the people. In classical Greek leitourgos
referred especially to persons performing public duties, or works of public use.
Leitourgos is used 5 times in the
NT:
Romans
2x;
Philippians;
Hebrews
2x. There are 14 uses in the
Septuagint: 2 Sam. 13:18, 1 Ki.
10:5, 2 Ki. 4:43, 2 Ki. 6:15, 2 Chr. 9:4, Ezra 7:24, Neh. 10:39, Ps. 103:21, Ps.
104:4, Isa. 61:6.
In the NT leitourgos is used by Paul to
describe himself (see note on
Ro 15:16) as well as his
"brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier", Epaphroditus (see note on
Philippians 2:25).
In Hebrews leitourgos is used of angels as God's ministers (see
note on
Hebrews 1:7) and of the priests as His
ministers in the sanctuary in the
Jerusalem Temple (Heb
8:2). Furthermore, leitourgos is the word primarily used
by to the Greek
Septuagint translation to describe
the Old Testament priestly service to God and of service to man. In this present
verse Paul uses this word with rich religious legacy to
refer to public ministers or "public servants",
describing those who render special service. Earlier Paul had called
government rulers God's deacons and here they are His ministers!
Cranfield comments that this phrase
"rulers are servants of God" emphasizes even stronger the servant aspect
of the governments
because the Greek wording has in view serving in a religious capacity, with an
emphasis on solemnity and dignity. (Cranfield, C E B: A Critical and Exegetical
Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Vol 2, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark
Limited, 1970)
Vincent agrees adding that
leitourgos...
brings out more fully the
fact that the ruler, like the priests, discharges a divinely ordained service.
Is is worth noting that
this verse represents the third time (Ro
13:1,4) Paul has stressed that the authority of
civil
authorities comes from God.
Kistemaker comments...
Is not the implication this, that, in the final analysis, the governing
authorities owe their authority not to people but to God to whom they are
responsible for all their actions; and that the citizens should so regard them;
and, when these officials faithfully carry out their duty, even that of
collecting taxes, should so honor them?Of course, this very principle has
implications also for the officials, as Calvin correctly observes when he
states, “It behooves them to remember that whatever they receive from the people
is, as it were, public property, and not to be spent in gratification of private
indulgence.” (Hendriksen,
W., & Kistemaker, S. J. NT Commentary Set. Baker Book
or
Logos)
One is reminded of Cyrus, the
Persian emperor, anointed by God to be His servant to carry out His will, God
declaring...
"It is I who says of Cyrus, 'He is My shepherd! And he will perform all My
desire.' And he declares of Jerusalem, 'She will be built,' And of the temple,
'Your foundation will be laid.'...Thus says the LORD to Cyrus His anointed, whom
I have taken by the right hand, to subdue nations before him, and to loose the
loins of kings; to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut: (Isa 44:28,
45:1)
In the OT, one of the
duties of the priests was to receive tithes and offerings and sacrifices from
the people. They were acting as God's agents in receiving these tithes and
offerings and sacrifices. Paul simply transfers that ministry and that work to
the government, and says that governments have this right given to them by God
to collect taxes, and that, in paying your taxes, you are paying properly
authorized revenue to God -- for these are his agents in carrying out this
ministry. In other words, the power to tax is a God-given power.
John MacArthur comments that
leitourgos
is one of several Greek words sometimes
translated minister in the New Testament. Again, it is the term
from which liturgy is derived; but it has a broad range of meanings
and applications. It was used by ancient Greeks of a public official who
was so passionately dedicated to his duties that he discharged them at his
own expense. The word often described doing a service that had an aura of
special importance, and a leitourgos was therefore highly respected
and honored by his fellow citizens. Paul refers to human rulers in general
as “servants [leitourgoi] of God” (Rom. 13:6), who are to be respected and
obeyed (vv. 1–5, 7). In the New Testament, leitourgos was most commonly
used of service to the Lord. Paul spoke of himself as “a minister of
Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God”
(Rom 15:16). The writer of Hebrews calls God’s holy angels “His ministers”
(Heb. 1:7) and even refers to Jesus Christ as “a minister in the sanctuary
and in the true tabernacle” (8:2). For Paul to call Epaphroditus a
minister was high praise indeed. Epaphroditus was himself the most
valuable gift that came to Paul from Philippi—a self-giving, tireless,
sacrificial, and humble servant of the highest caliber. (MacArthur,
J. Philippians. Chicago: Moody Press
or
Logos)
NIDNTT has the following note on
this word group...
Leitourgeo (verb form) means do public work at one’s own expense. It is a
political, almost legal, concept. The noun (leitourgos) similarly means
service for the people. In the later classical period it was as common a term as
“taxes” today (O. Cassel, Oriens Christianus 3, 7, 1932, 289). We seldom find
leitourgos in secular Gk.; where it is found it is rarely used in a
religious sense, but normally means an artisan. leitourgikos is found
only a few times in the papyri. In Hellenistic Gk. leitourgeo covers all
kinds of service to the community (H. Strathmann, TDNT IV 217) which a person
was under obligation to do because of the size of his income, but which could
also be carried out voluntarily. The concept gradually expanded, especially in
Egypt, to cover every conceivable compulsory service for the state, with
regulations laid down for every detail. Then it became widened to cover any sort
of service. Beside this legal meaning in public life, there developed an
entirely new, religious and cultic use of the words. The only connexion seems to
be that the cultus had a public importance for the community. There are,
however, no important deductions to be drawn from this. In the
Septuagint leitourgeo
(about 100 times) and leitourgia (about 40 times) acquired a clearly
defined meaning. They are used almost exclusively for the service of priests and
Levites in the temple. (Brown,
Colin, Editor. New International Dictionary of NT Theology. 1986. Zondervan)
Barclay has the following excellent
summary of this word group...
|
Leitourgia,
from which comes our English word 'liturgy', and its kindred words
form a group of words of unsurpassed interest. In classical and
Hellenistic Greek these words go through four stages of meaning.
(i) In the
very early days leitourgein, the verb, meant to undertake some
service of the state voluntarily and of one's own free will,
voluntarily to shoulder some public task in order patriotic-ally to
serve the state.
(ii) Later
leitourgein came to mean to perform the services which the State
laid upon citizens specially qualified to perform them. (Ed note:
"In ancient Greece there were certain state duties called liturgies
(leitourgiai) which were sometimes laid upon and sometimes
voluntarily shouldered by men who loved their country" from
Barclay's The letter to the Romans. The Daily study Bible series,
Rev. ed. Philadelphia: |
