Reading Scripture: Matthew 17.24–27

 

Augustin Tünger: "Peter Paying the Temple Tax" (1486)

Many who are delighted by the miracle of the coin in the fishes mouth might not be so sanguine about this sign if they understood the ramifications.

After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax ?” “Yes, he does,” he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own sons or from others?” “From others,” Peter answered. “Then the sons are exempt,” Jesus said to him. “But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.” (Matthew 17.24–27)

Jesus balks at paying the half-shekel temple tax as this would be counter to his claimed status as the Son of God. Christ thus has Peter contribute a tetradrachm of miraculous origin, which amounts to God demonstrating their exemption by paying himself on their behalf. The counter-intuitive implication is that those who are in Christ are exempt from the tithe for the simple reason that they belong to God, and therefor everything in their possession belongs to God. Hence we should follow the example of the shrewd manager who squanders on others what does not belong to him to prepare a future for himself:

There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures1 of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. (Luke 16:1-9)

We are to 'squander' the time and money allotted to us for the benefit of others so that we do not enter the world to come empty handed.

Evangelion: The Meaning of Sabbath

Karin Foreman: "Waves of Peace" (2015)

The question of Sabbath observance as it relates to non-Jewish believers requires some clarification of its relationship to the Law. The obligation of non-Jewish believers to observe the Law was considered by the council in Jerusalem, which ruled against burdening non-Jewish believers with the full weight of the Law:

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. (Acts 15.28–29)

James indicates that the four restrictions enumerated are, in effect, clarifications of laws already known to all people:

It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. (Acts 15.19–21)

One might reasonably ask why the council specified these restrictions instead of simply citing the Ten Commandments. Moreover, one might ask what exactly James means when he observes that: “Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath” (Acts 15.21). The answer to both questions is likely tied to post-exilic discussions of the so-called Noahide Laws, considered binding on Jews and non-Jews alike. Observance of non-Jewish laws resembling or even identical to the Noahide Laws was not considered meritorious unless performed by faith upon hearing Scripture proclaimed. Hence the reference to Moses being preached. The Babylonian Talmud summarizes the basic formulation of these laws as follows:

Our Rabbis taught: “Seven precepts were the sons of Noah taught: social laws, [and] to refrain from blasphemy, idolatry, adultery, bloodshed, robbery and eating flesh cut from a living animal.” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin VII.56a)

The Babylonian Talmud thereafter indulges in a long and contentious debate on whether the term social laws refers to (a) Sabbath observance and honoring one’s parents or to (b) establishment of legal systems. Paul’s letters to Rome and Colossi, subsequent to the council in Jerusalem, would seem to favor the latter reading:

One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. (Romans 14.5)

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Colossians 2.16–17)

Hebrews 4.9–10 provides the following curious explanation for this exception:

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.

What this means is better understood when we consider the implication of Christ’s claim to be Lord of the Sabbath:

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” Jesus answered them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Luke 6.1–5)

We should consider that the Sabbath constitutes a type of tribute (as does the tithe, the ransom of the firstborn, etc.) whose function is the formal recognition of the sovereignty of God. Jesus thus balks at paying the half-shekel temple tax as this would be counter to his claimed status as the Son of God. Christ thus has Peter contribute a four-drachma coin (the equivalent of two half-shekels) of miraculous origin, which amounts to God demonstrating their exemption by paying himself on their behalf:

After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax ?” “Yes, he does,” he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own sons or from others?” “From others,” Peter answered. “Then the sons are exempt,” Jesus said to him. “But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.” (Matthew 17.24–27)

Christ evidently understands this exemption to extend to everything and everyone that belongs to him, with the convention of tribute replaced by a convention of total ownership—hence the notion of a permanent Sabbath.

How then did Sunday come to be regarded as the Sabbath? Sunday originally presented the most convenient time to meet given that the provinces of Asia Minor set aside this day of the week as a market day when people came in from the surrounding countryside to sell their produce, townspeople suspended the normal working day, and slaves were allowed to conduct their own business (see Hutton Webster. Rest Days: The Christian Sunday, the Jewish Sabbath, and Their Historical and Anthropological Prototypes. New York: Macmillan, 1916).

Though the Western provinces observed an informal week based on an eight-day cycle of market days called the nundidae (‘ninth days’ counting inclusively), the Eastern provinces observed an astrological week requiring seven days to reconcile a daily cycle of two twelve-hour periods with a seven-hour cycle of planetary influences. The cycle of planets ruling any given hour corresponded to the seven observable planets arranged in descending order of presumed distance from the Earth—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. Each day of the week assumed the name of the planet ruling the first hour of that day, resulting in successive days named after Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus. Because the first day of the week was identified with the unlucky planet Saturn, the eastern provinces celebrated the second day of the week as a kind of feast day in honor of a tutelary deity of Rome: the Sun. The astrological week was thus out of phase with the sabbatical week by one day. The adoption by the Western provinces of a seven-day week (with Sunday reckoned as the first day) coincided with the rise of Christianity as a major social force throughout the Roman Empire. Constantine institutionalized the change when he declared Sunday holy to the Sun and decreed the suspension of non-agricultural business on this day:

On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it often happens that another day is not suitable for grain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum III.4121 and Codex Justinianus III.12.3)

For the Church, Sunday would have had both practical and ceremonial significance, falling on the day of the week when Christ rose from the dead; and it therefore seems entirely natural that Christians began to meet on this day and to regard the day itself as special. We thus note that Luke writes: “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread.” Decades later, John evidently refers to the first day of the week as “the Lord’s Day” when he writes: “On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit […]” (Revelation 1.10). However, the association of the Lord’s Day with the Sabbath seems to date from some time later than the second century for we note that Justin Martyr, though hard pressed to explain the significance of assembling on Sunday, did not explain it in terms of the Sabbath:

But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration. (First Apology, Chapter LXVII – Weekly Worship of the Christians)

In effect, Christians did not meet on Sunday because they considered that day holy. Sunday became holy because Christians met on that day.