Refusing to Render Unto Caesar That Which is God's

To understand what Jesus meant by, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, but render unto God what is God's," requires that we know what belongs to Caesar and what is God's, or at least how Jesus viewed the distribution of ownership. In his previous dust ups with the religious authorities, Jesus consistently justified himself and his teaching by reference to and reliance upon sacred Jewish Scripture. So in this case we may be sure that Jesus was relying on that same authority, which proclaims in Psalm 24:1 (and elsewhere), "The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it." That leaves nothing for poor old Caesar, and nothing is exactly what Jesus was told his listeners to give to that murdering thug whose agent was soon to murder Jesus.