{"id":28802,"date":"2014-03-14T16:57:59","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T08:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianitymalaysia.com\/wp\/?p=28802"},"modified":"2022-09-09T16:45:50","modified_gmt":"2022-09-09T08:45:50","slug":"tax-paying-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianitymalaysia.com\/wp\/tax-paying-fish\/","title":{"rendered":"A tax-paying fish"},"content":{"rendered":"

15\u00a0March 2014 by Simon Yap-<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Jesus Predicts His Death a Second Time<\/b><\/p>\n

22\u00a0<\/span><\/b>When they came together in Galilee, he said to them,\u00a0\u201cThe Son of Man\u00a0is going to be delivered into the hands of men.\u00a023\u00a0<\/span><\/b>They will kill him,\u00a0and on the third day\u00a0he will be raised to life.\u201d\u00a0And the disciples were filled with grief.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

24\u00a0<\/span><\/b>After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, \u201cDoesn\u2019t your teacher pay the temple tax?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

25\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u201cYes, he does,\u201d he replied.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak.\u00a0\u201cWhat do you think, Simon?\u201d\u00a0he asked. \u201cFrom whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes\u2014from their own children<\/strong> or from others?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

26\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u201cFrom others,\u201d Peter answered.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cThen the children are exempt,\u201d\u00a0Jesus said to him.\u00a0<\/span>27\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u201cBut so that we may not cause offense,\u00a0go 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

(<\/span><\/span>Matthew 17:22-26\u00a0<\/b>NIV<\/strong>)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\"Jesus-and-pharisees-tax\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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I love this little-known story. It really speaks much about the heart of the Lord. It speaks about how much Jesus loved\u00a0his disciples. It must be understood, Jesus’ public ministry was coming to an end. His popularity was dwindling. In those days, if you are popular, then you don\u2019t really have to pay tax. The fact that the collectors came to Peter and ask for tax shows this. Notice they didn\u2019t ask Jesus. They ask Peter.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Peter as many of us know, is a rash guy. He was worried about the status of his Master. So he began to argue on the part of his Master. Jesus saw this outside the house. When Peter came in, Jesus pulled him aside and told him, that children are exempted from tax payable to kings.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus was saying that the temple belongs to his Father and as such, he is exempted from paying tax. So Peter\u2019s answer was wrong. This is meaningful. Look at how Jesus corrected Peter;\u00a0so much of gentleness. Here\u2019s the interesting part. Jesus used this word ‘children.’ Not child. Hold that thought.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus then told Peter to do the craziest of things. He asked him to catch a fish and inside the fish,\u00a0he will find a 4 drachma coin. It was\u00a0enough to pay for Jesus and him. I want us to see that Jesus could have insisted on his right of not paying taxes. After all, the temple belonged to his father. However, note that\u00a0Jesus was not interested\u00a0in having an argument or having Peter getting involved into further argument.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Coin<\/a><\/p>\n

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You may wonder why\u2026<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Matthew had just told us \u201c22\u00a0<\/span><\/b>When they came together in Galilee, he said to them,\u00a0\u201cThe Son of Man\u00a0is going to be delivered into the hands of men.\u00a023\u00a0<\/span><\/b>They will kill him,\u00a0and on the third day\u00a0he will be raised to life.\u201d\u00a0And the disciples were filled with grief.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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He was about to die. He wanted to spend more time with Peter. When a person is near death, he focuses on things, which are most important. The most important thing to Peter was his Master\u2019s popularity. Jesus\u2019 focus was Peter. He wanted to spend his final moments with Peter;\u00a0his closest and most cherish friend. Credibility was more important to\u00a0Peter. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I want us to realize something. Before Jesus died, God had one begotten son (John 3:16). But\u00a0after he died, Jesus became the firstborn among his brethren (Romans 8:29). I want you to see something here. The tax was paid for Peter too. He through this incident had his tax also paid for him. Peter had then too become a child of the king.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I love this story because while we have all sorts of agendas, Jesus has only one. You and only you. He really loves you.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Be blessed.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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15\u00a0March 2014 by Simon Yap-   Jesus Predicts His Death a Second Time 22\u00a0When they came together in Galilee, he said to them,\u00a0\u201cThe Son of Man\u00a0is going to be delivered into the hands of men.\u00a023\u00a0They […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[4789,293,923,204,538,297,1178,77,891,44,352],"class_list":{"0":"post-28802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-inspirational","8":"tag-a-tax-paying-fish","9":"tag-christian","10":"tag-christian-in-malaysia","11":"tag-christianity","12":"tag-christianity-malaysia","13":"tag-christians","14":"tag-church-in-malaysia","15":"tag-jesus","16":"tag-jesus-in-malaysia","17":"tag-malaysia","18":"tag-simon-yap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianitymalaysia.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianitymalaysia.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianitymalaysia.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianitymalaysia.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianitymalaysia.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28802"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christianitymalaysia.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68343,"href":"https:\/\/christianitymalaysia.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28802\/revisions\/68343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianitymalaysia.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianitymalaysia.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianitymalaysia.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianitymalaysia.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}