Kids and Government

If I remind you that today is known as tax day here in the United States, some of you will breath a sigh of relief that you have completed the tedious work of pulling your tax returns together. Others of you, if you’ve forgotten about today, might now be panicking over your procrastination. What I want to encourage you all to do is to use today as a teachable moment to share with your kids what Jesus and the Apostle Paul have to say about governmental authority. Both of them taught that we are responsible to pay taxes to the government. Jesus tells us in Mark twelve seventeen that we are to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are Gods. In Romans thirteen, Paul commands the church to pay taxes to those whom taxes are owed. While we have no higher authority that God, we must recognize that our government has been instituted by God, and we are to respect the government’s authority, unless the government commands something immoral.