<p>22:16&nbsp;<em>And they sent to him their disciples</em>- The use of&nbsp;<em>apostello</em>&nbsp;&quot;sent out&quot; and&nbsp;<em>mathetes</em>&nbsp;&quot;disciples&quot; obviously recalls the use of these words concerning the Lord sending out&nbsp;<em>His&nbsp;</em>disciples. Just as the kingdoms of Babylon and Assyria are described in terms of&nbsp;<em>God's</em>&nbsp;Kingdom, thus making them anti-Kingdoms of God and their leaders antiChrists, so the Jewish system of the first century was a parody of God's Kingdom as it was exemplified in the Lord and His group of followers.&nbsp;<br /><i><br /><em>Along with the Herodians</em></i>- The Pharisees and Herodians were sworn enemies. Herod was anathema to the Pharisees, who saw him as a false Jew and some kind of antiChrist figure. But a theme of the Lord's judgment and death was that His enemies were united together by a common hatred of Him.</p><p><em>Saying: Teacher. We know that you are true</em>- Lk. 20:21 adds that they also said at this point: &quot;You say and teach&nbsp;<em>rightly</em>&quot;, Gk.&nbsp;<em>orthos</em>, from whence 'orthodox'. They were thereby trying to lead Him to make a right wing, conservative answer, namely, that tribute should be given to God and not Caesar. And then the Herodians could legally swoop upon Him and have Him arrested for disloyalty to the empire.&nbsp;</p><p><em>And teach the way of God in truth</em>- John the Baptist had attempted to prepare the way or path over which God's glory in Messiah could come to Zion. The only other occurrence of &quot;the way of God&quot; is when we read that Apollos, who knew only John's teaching, had to have &quot;the way of God&quot;, i.e. John's message about the way, explained more fully to him (Acts 18:26). It may be that John had been so unworldly that he had not paid tribute to Caesar, or at least, he had been interpreted that way; and so now the Pharisees were commenting that if the Lord truly upheld John's teaching, then what was his answer about paying the tribute money? Because it was perceived, at very least, that John had advocated not paying it.</p><p><em>And care not for anyone</em>- That was, in a sense, the impression which people took of Jesus. The same words and accusation about His not caring for people are to be found on the lips of the disciples, in the same words (Mk. 4:38 &quot;Don't you care that we perish?&quot;; Martha thought the Lord 'didn't care' that she was serving alone, Lk. 10:40). In reality, it was the hireling who cared not for the sheep (Jn. 10:13 s.w.), and the Lord was the one who cared for them so much that He died for them. That the most caring man of all time and space could be so misunderstood, even by His closest followers, is encouragement to us when we feel so globally misunderstood. We are thereby fellowshipping part of the Lord's sufferings and existential loneliness.&nbsp;</p><p><em>For you regard not the person of men</em>- This again was an appeal to Jewish orthodoxy, whereby the righteous Jew was supposed to be obedient to God regardless of what others thought. They were trying to lead the Lord into a position whereby He said 'No' to the question about giving the tribute money. And the Herodians were ready to pounce on Him if He did. We can reconstruct how the Pharisees and Herodians worked together in this; the Pharisees were trying to lead the Lord by a path of theology and logic to a position whereby He denied the need to pay tribute- and then Herod's supporters could pounce on Him. The verisimilitude and internal agreement of the record is again strong encouragement to accept this as the inspired word of God, recording he actual words spoken rather than giving a mere summary or imagination of them from a distance of time and space.</p>