While this post is titled “The Tax Trap,” it could also be fittingly applied to interest rates, overtime pay, stocks, and any other monetary enticements. “Tax Trap” is just a nice alliteration. Humanity has historically been distracted by taxes while injustice, corruption, evil, etc. runs rampant.
Taxes are widely regarded by the majority of people as an imposition they hate to pay. In fact, America was founded, in part, because American colonists were being taxed without representation.
However, this hatred is not new and neither is the moral smokescreen most people are unaware of. A well-known story in the Gospels is the attempt to entrap Jesus with whether or not the Jewish people should pay taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22, Mark 12, Luke 20). While Jesus addressed the Pharisees trying to trap Him, He made it clear taxes are to be paid to the authorities. Later, Paul reiterated that in Romans 13.
These commands are crucial because Jesus is standing in the face of the crowd who is being suffocated by taxes. Later, Paul is solidifying not only submitting to the governing authorities as Jesus commanded, but he is also explaining why that submission is necessary, and the appropriate fear and consequences of not submitting.
But human nature being what it is, people still make excuses to not pay taxes or claim entitlement, even though U.S. law is widely available (e.g., Wesley Snipes, Leona Helmsley). Now that we’ve established that God commands paying taxes, and taxes were a big reason for the American Revolution, we know that they’re required and we know they’ve played big roles in history.
However, if one reads Scripture for any length of time, they’ll see God cares far more about justice, mercy, love, walking humbly, compassion, the poor, the downtrodden, etc., than taxes. Unfortunately, when I watched the 2024 presidential race, even though these traits have been front and center for many years, I saw people pushing them to the side like a massive boulder blocking their path to a larger bank account.
America has had many sins prior to this past presidential election, even the 2016 election. She will pay for greed, injustice, etc—but because she cared more about money than her internal sin, and especially ignoring the sins and proven crimes of Trump, she contributed to her own downfall, and re-electing him was the final nail in the coffin.
Mind@Work 