I live in a part of the country where the five-letter word taxes is often used as a four-letter word. Folks around here are highly skeptical of government even as they say we have the best government in the world. The people of first-century Palestine had greater reasons to be on the edge of revolt; they were taxed not by a government they'd elected but by an empire that occupied their land. The parties of the Pharisees and Herodians pushed Jesus on a sensitive issue with their "gotcha" question: Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not? They wanted to corner Jesus as the programmed loser, but his famous words of wisdom were a game changer: "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's."
I prefer the word image for the word that is sometimes translated as head or likeness of Caesar on that tax money. Image is better because it makes the connections in Jesus' response much clearer. Caesar had an imprinted image on Roman coins, and God has an imprinted image too—on us. All creation bears God's image because God is the Creator of all things including the human man Caesar. When we give to God things that are God's, there isn't anything left to give to anyone else. It's all God's!
As God's people we bear the image of God. We have God tattooed on our foreheads and on our hearts. But amazingly, this isn't a one-way street. Isaiah once described God's deep connection and love for us by asking, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands" (Isa. 49:15–16).
