Mark 12:15 Meaning Shall We Give

The whole exchange is a persistent assumption meeting the doubt that would talk it down. "Shall we give, or shall we not give?" is reason wavering, hunting for a trap. The answer does not argue. It asks to see the coin, the concrete thing in hand, and reads the image stamped on it before saying a word. That is how imagination works: it looks at the picture already impressed and speaks from what is there.

Hypocrisy here is the divided mind that says one thing and expects another. Belief in the imaginal act brings it to pass whatever obstacles the questioners raise. The coin bears an image and a name, and a person likewise bears the image he has assumed. What is stamped within is rendered without. A state held quietly, untroubled by the arguments against it, becomes the fact a person carries into the world.