<p>17:26&nbsp;<em>And when he said &lsquo;From strangers&rsquo;, Jesus said to him: Therefore the children are free-&nbsp;</em>Barnes summarizes the argument: &ldquo;Kings do not tax their own sons. This tribute-money is taken up for the temple service; that is, the service of my Father. I, therefore, being the Son of God, for whom this is taken up, cannot be lawfully required to pay this tribute&rdquo;. Peter later asks his sheep: &ldquo;Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man&hellip; unto governors&hellip;&nbsp;<em>as free</em>&hellip; honour all men&rdquo; (1 Pet. 2:13-17). This is all evident allusion to the way he had once felt that as free in Christ and in Israel, he didn&rsquo;t need to submit to men and pay taxes. But the Lord had gently rebuked him, and provided the coin to pay for them both (Mt. 17:25-27). The Gospels records would have been well known amongst the early believers; there is a tradition that at least the Gospel of Mark was learnt by heart as part of instruction for baptism. Peter&rsquo;s readers would have known of the incident, and now, here he is telling them to learn the lesson he had had to learn. The Lord seems to make a concession to the inability of the surrounding world to understand Him, when He tells Peter that as God's people, they are free from the requirement to pay taxes to the present world. But &quot;lest we should offend them&quot;, we should pay them (Mt. 17:27). As the Lord spoke to men according to their level of ability to comprehend Him (Mk. 4:33; and consider how He used the language of demons), so should we.</p>
<p>The statement that His followers were &ldquo;free&rdquo; from paying the temple tax was effectively a statement that the Lord&rsquo;s greatness as &ldquo;one greater than the temple&rdquo; (12:6) meant that He was at liberty to therefore abrogate the teaching of Torah- for Ex. 30:13,14 did indeed stipulate a temple tax. His overturning of the tables of the moneychangers, who enabled the payment of the temple tax in practice (21:12-17) was likewise effectively stating that the temple tax law was not binding on His followers. The Lord taught that the tax should be paid so as not to offend the potential Christian faith of the Jews, rather than because it was a question of obedience to Divine law- because that law was ended.</p>
<p>Another consideration is that the Lord is alluding to the Jewish idea that the priests themselves were exempted from the temple tax (<em>Sheqalim</em>&nbsp;1.8)- because He considered His followers the new priesthood. He had used the same argument in justifying why the disciples could grind corn on the Sabbath- they were, He implied, like the priests who could even eat the showbread on the Sabbath.</p>