Tuesday, July 8, 2008

"Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated – the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground" (Hebrews 11:36-38 NIV).

IDEA: Tax collectors were despised because they were considered traitors by the Jewish people.

PURPOSE: To help listeners appreciate why the religious leaders and the people hated tax collectors.

Have you ever known anyone personally who worked for the IRS?

Did you like them?

We may not enjoy paying taxes, but we don't despise the people who collect them.

I. In the Gospels we meet tax collectors who are heartily disliked. 

The Old Testament talks more about tithes than it does about taxes.

We do not know any tax collectors in the Old Testament.

Tax collectors as we meet them in the New Testament were another group that rose to prominence during the period between the Old and New Testaments.

II. When Rome conquered a people, Rome did not treat the people in the same way as the Assyrians or Babylonians did.

The Assyrians and Babylonians carried people captive to other lands, and then bring some of their own people in to populate the conquered land.

The Romans left the people where they were and wanted two things from the population:

They demanded loyalty

They demanded taxes

Taxation was a major issue that occupied the minds of all those under Roman rule.

The taxes that the Jews paid were enormously high.

They paid a large tax to the Roman government, Mark 12:13-17.

They also paid a provincial tax.

They also paid a temple tax levied by the priests.

Rome collected its taxes through Jewish tax collectors. What was the advantage of Rome collecting taxes in that way?

The tax collectors knew their communities better than the Romans did.

Because the taxes were very high and the Jews resented paying them, Rome wanted the hostility to be directed against the tax collectors rather than against the Roman government.

The tax collectors acted as a network of spies for the Romans.

The people hated the tax collectors for the same reason that the Romans valued them. 

III. The tax collectors paid the Romans what they wanted as a tax, and they in turn levied taxes against their countrymen for their own support.

Extortion and dishonesty were part of the position of tax collector. The tax collector would take as much as the traffic would bear.

Tacitus, the Roman historian, said that in one community he visited, the people had an honest tax collector: they erected a monument to his memory.

Jesus courted the hatred of the religious leaders by catering to the tax collectors.