Tag: God's provision

Temple Tax

After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple 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 children or from others?”

“From others,” Peter answered.

“Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him. “But so that we may not cause offense, 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

We learn some things when Jesus was approached about giving the temple tax. This wasn’t a tax given to the Romans to fund the empire. This was an annual tax worth about two days wages that was meant for the upkeep of the temple. Every Jewish male twenty years of age and older was required to pay this tax. The religious establishment in Jerusalem was in charge of collecting it. The Pharisees and Sadducees were behind this tax.

Jesus, the Son of God, peppers Peter with questions about kings taxing their own sons. Jesus’s point here is that this tax was mean for the house of God, and if they had known that Jesus was the Son of God, they would have never required Him to pay this tax. Kings don’t tax their own sons.

Yet, Jesus says that He’ll pay the tax anyway. His reasoning for doing so was so that they wouldn’t “cause offense.” This is so interesting because, in other places in the Gospels, Jesus couldn’t care less about offending the Pharisees. We see one such scenario in Matthew 15:

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”

He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

Matthew 15:10-14

When it comes to speaking and teaching the truth, Jesus doesn’t mind offending the Pharisees. He even increases the offense by calling them “blind guides.” Yet, when it comes to something like paying a tax, it’s as if Jesus wants to avoid being offensive. There is a sense here that Jesus is more than willing to offend for the sake of God’s truth but isn’t interested in offending just for the sake of being spiteful. He’s not into offending for the sake of offending. There needs to be more purpose in it.

The church would do well to learn this lesson. Some churches are deathly afraid of offending anyone. Other churches think that it is a sign of spiritual maturity to perpetually offend everyone. Neither approach is healthy.

Finally, notice how God resources Jesus so that He could pay the tax for Himself and Peter. Peter didn’t go to the marketplace and sell something. Jesus chose a very peculiar and supernatural way of getting the resources of heaven. We are reminded, as we picture Peter pulling a valuable coin out of a fish’s mouth, that God often provides in unexpected and unusual ways.

God is not bound by our rules of supply and demand. God is not limited by our economic principles. All the resources of heaven are at God’s fingertips and He can release them however He chooses. The Kingdom of God doesn’t play by our rules. The Kingdom is not interested in our limitations. God, as a loving Father, hears about our rationalism and empiricism and laughs, as if to say, “Aw, isn’t that cute.”

When we ask God to be our Provider, we need to be ready for Him to surprise us with unexpected and supernatural sources of provision. It is important to crunch the numbers and try to be responsible, but we also need to remember that God is never limited by our spreadsheets and budgets. He is not limited by our cautious imaginations. God, the Creator, loves to provide for us, and He loves to do it in creative and interesting ways that we’d never expect.

Jehovah-Jireh

“…Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

Genesis 22:12-14

This is one of the most famous moments in the Bible. Isaac was the son Abraham and Sarah weren’t able to have for years. After decades of infertility, God blessed them with Isaac. All the promises of Abraham’s future, his legacy, his descendants and his inheritance from the Lord were contained in Isaac. And Abraham was willing to surrender it all to the Lord, leaving it all behind, for the sake of obedience.

The writer of Hebrews interprets the moment this way:

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

Hebrews 11:17-19

It was this moment that gave us one of the names of God. Traditionally “Jehovah-Jireh” or “Yaweh-Yir’eh” has been translated, “The Lord will Provide.” In a moment of crisis, God provided Abraham with the ram. God provided the sacrifice that Abraham needed at just the right moment. This is a foreshadow of what God would do through Jesus, providing for us the perfect sacrifice.

In the Hebrew, the word “Jireh” or “Yir’eh” literally means “to see.” So the literal translation of Jehovah-Jirah is, “The Lord will see.” And instead of the phrase being translated, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided,” the literal translation is, “in the mountain of the Lord it will be seen.”

There is a connection in the Hebrew between God “seeing” and God “providing.” This same connection can be seen in English as well. When we say, “see to it” we aren’t talking about looking at something. We’re talking about action. And we have the word “provision” which literally contains the word “vision” in it. One definition of “pro-vision” means “to see beforehand.” It’s about preparing ahead of time with “provisions.”

So in this one Hebrew word, Jireh, we understand that God is our provider because He is the God who sees our need ahead of time. God’s name, Jehovah-Jireh, isn’t just about God giving us stuff. It’s about the nature of a good Father who knows His children, a Father who is not preoccupied but fully present, and loves to provide for His kids. He sees us. He sees our situation. He sees our need.

Sometimes we need to remember that God is enough because God is our provider. He sees us. And because God is enough, He makes us enough. If you want to hear an uplifting song that highlights God as Jehovah-Jireh, listen to this one. It is called “Jireh” by Maverick City Music and Elevation Worship.