29A23.   Isaiah 45:1, 4-6.     Before God created anything, there was absolutely nothing.  What came to be, only came to be, because God created it.  The power that the great Persian emperor Cyrus had was his only because God gave him the means to have access to that power.  In effect, God is saying to Cyrus, “I am the Lord and there is no other, there is no God besides me.  It is I who arm you, though you know me not.”

Matthew 22:15-21.  What Jesus had said in the previous Sundays’ gospel enraged the Jewish authorities.  The result was that they plotted to “entrap Jesus in speech” by maliciously putting him in the position of having to respond to a classic dilemma.  If he were to say that one must pay tax to Caesar that would put him in the position of offending the Jewish faith by supporting a pagan authority.  On the other hand, if he were to refuse to pay the tax to Caesar that would put him in violation against the Roman authority and lead to his being arrested and jailed.  Jesus outfoxed the foxes by saying give back to Caesar what was clearly Caesar’s because the coin had Caesar’s image on it but everything else that God has made give back to God.  We too can be more clever than the devil by living our lives in the hands of God who will always protect us from the wiliness of the devil.

1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b.   “For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.”  Paul is telling the Thessalonians that coming to live with Jesus as our Savior does not come to us only by the force of intellectual and rational presentation but also by the spiritual power of the Holy Spirit working within us.  It was because of God’s love for them that God chose them by opening up their hearts to Jesus.