The Tax Man, Caesar, and a Man’s Straight Answer

A man ought to tell the truth plain and not circle it like a buzzard. That’s the trouble with most preaching on money. It comes close to the fire and then backs away.

You work. The government takes its bite. You put what’s left in a bank. It grows a little, like a thin stalk in bad soil, and they cut that too. A man doesn’t need a seminary degree to know what that is. It’s the State with both hands out. It may be legal. It’s still a damned shame.

Billy Graham Was right about one thing: if money owns your heart, you’re finished. A man who worships money is already on his knees. But a man can love God and still call a crooked thing crooked. You don’t stop being honest just because the tax is written in neat letters.

“Render unto Caesar” never meant “let Caesar take whatever he pleases and smile while he does it.” It meant you pay what you must and you remember who owns your soul. Caesar’s face is on the coin. God’s mark is on the man.

So you say it straight: taxing a worker’s savings twice is wrong. Taxing the crumbs of interest from a poor man’s account is wrong. A government that cannot live without clawing at the little he has set aside is sick. A country that punishes saving and rewards waste is heading for a hard winter.

You still pay what the law forces out of you. A man keeps his word, even with men he doesn’t respect. But you don’t have to pretend it’s noble. You don’t have to dress it in holy talk. You vote. You speak. You teach your sons and daughters that their worth is not in ledgers or in accounts, and that no office in the capital has the right to lay claim to their hope.

Let the tax man have his numbers. Let him gnaw at the edges of your coin. But keep your back straight when you walk out of the bank. Keep your hands strong and your heart clean. A man belongs to God first, and any government that forgets that will learn it the hard way.