Though one of Jesus’ lesser-known miracles, the provision of the temple tax from a fish’s mouth is one that is rich with lessons for us today – whether it’s tax season or not!

<p>Though one of Jesus’ lesser-known miracles, the provision of the temple tax from a fish’s mouth is one that is rich with lessons for us today – whether it’s tax season or not!</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

Chester Clark

Something Fishy

Well, this morning we're going to be looking at 1 of the lesser-known miracles of Jesus, not something we talk about as much as some of the others, but it's an important 1 nonetheless, and it's 1 that I think that we can especially maybe contemplate as we think of the tax time that we've been in here recently.

I think what you're gonna have to do is just turn off the switches like the on buttons for all the other microphones except what we're using.

We're just getting too much monitor up here as a problem.

So if you just turn off all the mics except mine for now, that'll probably help.

We could even do it without microphones if we needed to, couldn't we?

So today we're going to be talking about the miracle of the coin in the fish.

The coin in the fish, it's found here in Matthew chapter 17, and it's interesting, I think it's interesting that of all the gospels, Matthew is the only 1 who has a record of this miracle.

Now, what was Matthew's previous profession before he was called to be a disciple?

And so Matthew the tax collector knows about this story of Jesus and the miracle of the fish, and he thinks this is an important story to tell.

Matthew had not been collecting the temple tax.

The temple tax was something that goes all the way back to the Old Testament times.

The Jews didn't have so much trouble with paying the temple tax.

It was the Roman taxes they had problems with, right?

In fact, let's just spend a moment, a brief moment, and let's look back here at Exodus chapter 30.

Exodus chapter 30, let's just read the piece of legislation, I guess you might say, from the Lord that directed this temple tax to be collected, half a shekel for every single person, every single, not person, every single man that was over the age of 20.

And this is found in Exodus chapter 30 and we're going to begin reading in verse 11.

Exodus chapter 30 and verse 11 and this is what the Lord says, when you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, verse 12 actually, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the Lord.

When you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them, this is what everyone shall give among those who are numbered, among those who are numbered shall give half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary.

The half shekel shall be an offering to the Lord.

Everyone included among those who are numbered from 20 years old and above shall give an offering to the Lord, " and so forth.

So here is where this temple tax came from.

If you are over 20, you owed a half-shekel temple tax, and that was an annual gift that you gave to the temple.

And so the story is here in Matthew chapter 17 of how the priests and the Pharisees, the rulers, they came to Peter and they asked him the question.

Now I just have a sneaking suspicion that they came to Peter rather intentionally.

Perhaps the scribes and the Pharisees always following Jesus and trying to trip him up and to ask him a question that he would give an inappropriate answer to or something they could twist and use to their own designs, perhaps they had noticed as they followed Jesus that his disciples weren't always as astute in answering those questions as Jesus was, right?

Perhaps they noticed that those disciples would sometimes say things without thinking and if there was anyone that they might have noticed had this propensity it would certainly have been Peter, right?

Because Peter was the 1 who thought, well, he spoke first and thought second, right?

He's the 1 who sort of just said whatever was on his mind.

And so they come to Peter in the end of chapter 17 here, and they came to Peter and they said, does your teacher not pay the temple tax?

I don't know exactly how this worked, honestly.

I've not done a lot of research about it.

We know there would have been a synagogue in Capernaum.

There wasn't the temple, of course, it was in Jerusalem, but perhaps it was collected by each individual synagogue.

And Jesus being a frequent, in fact at this point in His ministry, He's pretty much staying, that's His home base is Capernaum.

And so they're asking Peter, does your master not support the temple, the tax, the synagogue?

And Peter, of course, not wanting to look as if his master were somehow a revolutionary or somehow not supportive of the system, Peter said yes.

Jesus of course is not angry at Peter for saying this, but he's got a lesson for Peter to learn.

And so he comes to Peter and it says that as Peter comes into the house, I'm assuming this would have been Peter's house because Peter lived in Capernaum, right?

That was where we talked about a couple of weeks ago, the miracle of the healing of the paralytic, that was there in Peter's house.

And Peter comes back to his house and Jesus is there where he often was staying and he said, what do you think, Simon?

From whom do the Kings of the earth take customs or taxes from their sons or from strangers.

Jesus said to him, then the sons are free, nevertheless, lest we offend them.

Go to the sea, cast in a hook, and take the fish that comes up first.

And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money.

Take that and give it to them for me and you." Now, here's a fascinating story, a fascinating story.

We're going to look at this miracle of the fish, the temple tax.

And we're going to find 5 things that we can learn from this temple tax.

And first of all, we notice, this is an amazing story of how Jesus tells a fisherman to go fishing.

Now, Peter was experienced as a fisherman.

We assume, because the other stories of fishing, they have nets in the story, they involve nets, right?

We could assume that most of the fishing done by Peter and his brother and the other fishermen, James and John and so forth, who were a part of that region of the Lake of Galilee, there on the north shore of the Lake of Galilee.

We would assume that most of the fishing was done by nets, but here Jesus says, go and cast a hook.

Now I can only imagine that as we look at the challenge of casting a hook in those days, it must have been somewhat difficult, don't you think?

I mean, today we've got these very small manufactured hooks, and those hooks have a hook.

I mean, it's really a double hook, isn't it, what we fish with today?

It's a hook, but then it's got a hook on the hook.

And that's what keeps that hook from coming out.

I suppose in those days they would have to, what would they make it out of, iron?

And it couldn't have been so small and thin as we would make hooks today, right?

It wouldn't be as small and thin and hard for the fish to see.

So here Peter's supposed to take a hook, and I suppose they would take bait on their hooks, and he's supposed to cast that hook out and the first fish that bites, Jesus says, take it and you'll find money in its mouth.

Now Jesus here reveals the fact that He is Lord of all.

Can you imagine, of all the fish in the Sea of Galilee, Jesus can direct the right fish to Peter's hook at the right time.

And not only is Jesus the Lord of the fish, He is the Lord of the silver and gold.

Because somehow, He's going to command for silver, I don't know, Maybe that fish went and scooped up a silver coin.

I can't imagine that coins look that attractive to fish.

But somehow Jesus is not only going to command that fish to be on Peter's hook, he's going to command the right amount of silver, the silver coin, I suppose it would have been a shekel, a temple shekel nonetheless, because each man was to pay a half shekel tax and this would be a 1 shekel coin, enough for Peter and for Jesus.

And before Peter even got on his waders, before he even got his fishing rod or his hook and his bait, Jesus already told him, not only is the first fish going to have a coin in his mouth, He told him how much the coin would be worth.

It would be a shekel coin, enough for the 2 men's taxes.

The first thing that we see from this story is that Jesus is Lord of all.

I'm thankful today that we serve a risen Savior, aren't you?

Because that same Jesus is still on the throne, or He is again on the throne of the universe.

He's still the 1 who controls the fish of the sea and the earth, earth's silver.

Jesus, the Lord of creation, controls all things.

And we see that illustrated powerfully in this story.

The purpose and the pleasure of Christ's will, which all creation bends to and obeys, guided that single fish out of multiple schools in the Sea of Galilee to Peter's hook, and demonstrated that Jesus can and does control all things.

There's a second lesson that I want us to see from this passage today.

In fact, if you turn, keep your finger here in Matthew 17 because we're going to come right back here, but turn with me to Matthew 22 and beginning with verse 15, Matthew chapter 22 and verse 15.

And this is a number of days later, perhaps weeks later, that The Pharisees are going to try to entrap Jesus again.

I suppose it may have been the same Pharisees who were defeated when they realized that Jesus did pay the temple tax.

You see, the Pharisees were always working from 2 angles.

They would try to trap Jesus into saying something they could use against him with the Jews.

So if Jesus had come and said, no, I don't need to pay the temple tax, then the Pharisees would have gone to the Jews and said, look, Jesus doesn't obey Moses.

He doesn't do what the Old Testament, the Torah commands us.

And now they're trying to trap him up with the Romans because if Jesus is to say, no, don't pay Roman taxes, they would go to the Roman rulers and say, this man is inciting an insurrection, he does not support the laws of the Roman Empire, and he is guilty of trying to overthrow Rome.

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Something Fishy

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