On Rendering to Caesar and Rendering to God
Taken from 1 and 2 Kings for Everyone
Description
On Rendering to Caesar and Rendering to God
1 Kings 18:1-18
Two friends of mine work in a Middle Eastern country where it is illegal to seek to get people to come to believe in Christ. Their own position is secure because they work in the expatriate church in the capital, and it is OK for them to minister to Christians there and OK for Christians to worship Christ there. It is OK for Westerners, that is, though three local believers were killed for doing so and/or for allegedly speaking about Christ to other people; in a way, one hopes that this allegation was true. But my friends would be expelled if they were discovered to have been seeking to lead local people to faith in Christ. Somehow they have to “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s,” and in so doing be as “clever as snakes and as harmless as doves” (see Matthew 10:16; 22:21)...