Then they asked Him, saying, “Teacher, we know that You say and teach rightly, and You do not show personal favoritism, but teach the way of God in truth: Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
Luke 20:21-22
When Jesus taught His creation on this earth, many rejected Him as the Christ, denied Him as Lord and refused to accept that He was “God with us.” However, one title that even His critics and enemies had to acknowledge was that he was a great teacher. This sparks my interest as one who has been in the teaching profession for over forty years. What was Jesus’ teaching style? What kind of lesson plans did He use? And how can I teach like the grand master?
In the portion above, it’s clear that Christ had what every educator eventually runs into, students that try to to get the teacher to say something that can be used against him. It’s the classic “student that comes, but doesn’t want to learn” scenario. They complimented Him for being politically incorrect and then baited Him with a loaded question that they hoped would bring Him down. Jesus not only took their bait, He took the whole rod and reel and made their question backfire on them.
Christ responded to their question with a question, “Why do you test me?” showing that He saw through their ruse. Instead of side-stepping the issue and avoiding the question, He took it head on. (In pedagogy, it’s called a “teachable moment”). They showed interest in something, so He’d tell them something they didn’t know. Show me a denarius,” He added. This used many teaching techniques:
1. It got the student kinetically (physically) involved.
2. It made them put their tax money where their mouth was (i.e. showed that they had the money to pay their taxes).
3. It produced a manipulative (i.e. a physical object to focus on).
Whose image and inscription does it have?” was His next “right there” question. It was a simple question that anyone could get right and caused the answerer to buy into the learning process. “Caesar’s,” they responded acknowledging the obvious.
At this point the Lord hit them with the zinger, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Luke 20:25). The lesson came short and to the point, just like a really good teacher does it.
April 21
