<p>22:19&nbsp;<em>Show me the tribute money. And they brought to him a denarius</em>- The Pharisees claimed that pagan coinage should not be brought into the temple courts. This is why the coin had to be brought to the Lord. By so doing, the Lord was purposefully provoking the Pharisees; likely the Herodians (:16) brought it, not the Pharisees. In any case, we see yet another powerful evidence that the historical records of the Gospels are true to the very smallest detail.</p><p>The tribute money had the inscription&nbsp;<em>Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti Filius Augustus Pontifex Maximus</em>- &ldquo;Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, High Priest&rdquo;. Pedants would&rsquo;ve quickly assumed that such blasphemous language and appropriation of titles appropriate to the Lord Jesus would mean that such coinage should not be used, nor should such tribute be paid to any man on this basis. But the Lord saw a bigger picture. He was quite OK with such token behaviours, but the far bigger issue was giving to God our own bodies and lives which bear His image.</p><p>&nbsp;The coin bore an image which strict Jews considered blasphemous, denoting Tiberius as son of God, the divine Augustus. The Lord doesn&rsquo;t react to this as they expected &ndash; He makes no comment upon the blasphemy. He lets it go, but insists upon a higher principle. &lsquo;If this is what Caesar demands, well give it to him; but give what has the image of God, i.e. yourself, to God&rsquo;. He didn&rsquo;t say &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t touch the coins, they bear false doctrine, to pay the tax could make it appear you are going along with a blasphemous claim&rsquo;. Yet some would say that we must avoid touching anything that might appear to be false or lead to a false implication our endless arguments over Bible versions and words of hymns are all proof of this. The Lord wasn&rsquo;t like that. He lived life as it is and as it was, and re-focused the attention of men upon that which is essential, and away from the minutiae. Staring each of us in the face is our own body, fashioned in God&rsquo;s image &ndash; and thereby the most powerful imperative, to give it over to God. Yet instead God&rsquo;s people preferred to ignore this and argue over the possible implication of giving a coin to Caesar because there was a false message on it. Morally and dialectically the Lord had defeated His questioners; and yet still they would not see the bigger and altogether more vital picture which He presented them with.</p>