GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 12:14
Do You Agree
 Somewhere, I read a bit of advice for salespeople that said one should always begin by finding something on which the customer and you, the salesperson, can agree. Then, building on that agreement, one should keep agreeing until you bring the customer to agree to buy your product.
 Alice and I were invited to listen to a salesman’s discussion of a variable annuity. His questions were pointed: Do you want retirement income? Yes. Do you want security? Yes. Do you want your spouse to be secure? Yes.
 This salesman was good: he had us agreeing with everything he said. Then he turned his notepad toward us and began writing upside down. I had never seen anyone do that, but he did it as smoothly as if he were writing normally. That was the first warning sign. The second warning sign was my background reading about variable annuities. Maybe they are right for some people, but not for us.
 I was reminded of that experience as I worked on a translation of Mark’s account of Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisees and Herodians. This conversation contains a couple of idiomatic expressions, so it is presented in St. Mark’s more literal terminology. “And they having come, said to him, ‘Teacher, we have known that you are true, and you are not caring for anyone, for you do not look to the face of men, but in truth the way of God you teach; is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? May we give or not give?’”
 A close, but smoother, translation is: “And after they came, they said to him, ‘Teacher, we know that you are truthful, and you do not care what others think, for you do not seek the approval of men, but you truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? Should we pay or not pay?’” (Mark 12:14)
 Was Jesus truthful? Yes. Did he show favoritism? No. Did he teach the way of God truthfully? Yes. Then they were ready to clinch the deal, to spring the trap: Should we, Jews, pay the tribute, a form of poll tax, to Caesar or not? This was a tax that had to be paid in Roman (not Jewish) coin, which symbolized Jewish subservience to the Roman overlords.
 The Roman coin was the “denarius.” On one side of the coin was the image of Tiberius, the reigning Caesar. “Pontifex maximus,” or “the high priest of the Roman nation,” was stamped on the other side. The use of those coins in the temple was forbidden, for the coin was a sign of Roman power, a symbol of submission to Rome, and, in some sense, the emperor’s image on the coin suggested that the coin and its user were the emperor’s personal property. This accounts for the “money changers” in the temple courts, who exchanged the denarius at a significant rate for the Tyrian shekel—which, ironically, bore the image of a pagan god.
 One important lesson from this event is to be cautious when someone approaches with excessive flattery.
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