31/08/2026
Jesus did not spend His ministry condemning the evils of Caesar. In the Gospels, there is no recorded instance of Him directly and exclusively denouncing Rome or its rulers. Instead, He exposed evil wherever He found it, and He did so most forcefully among those leading the temple and claiming to represent the faith.
His sharpest words were reserved for scribes and Pharisees, whom He called a "brood of vipers" (Matthew 23:33), and His only recorded act of physical confrontation was cleansing His Father's house of corruption where faith had become transactional, not devotional (Matthew 21:12-13).
When His enemies tried to trap Him, pressuring Him to speak against Caesar, a crime, or in favor of His own people's oppression, He gave them neither. Instead He said, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21). It was not evasion. It was a refusal to let His mission be reduced to a political side, or a geographical location for that matter.
We, as believers, are pressured into that same trap daily. And though some among us are called to political office, all of us are called to be like Christ in a fallen world.
That means we stop shouting about the evils of Cesar and start showing up with the goodness of God. It means our loudness should exalt Christ and expose darkness by reflecting His light, including the darkness within our own houses of worship, rather than simply supporting or discrediting whoever sits on the throne.
Jesus was tried as a political enemy of Rome. But when you read what He actually said, His war was never with Caesar. It was with corruption wearing the name of God, and the darkness in men's hearts that leads them there. Disclaimer, this is not an endorsement to political apathy, but to "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's"