Some Pharisees and Herodians came to Jesus with a question intended to trap him into saying something for which he could be arrested by the Romans for speaking against the emperor, then some Sadducees tried to trap him into speaking against the Law which could have led to his arrest by the Sanhedrin.

In the first question, Jesus was not tricked by hypocritical flattery (12:14) and then avoided the trap set for him. His answer meant that if God's claims on a person were satisfied then there was no need to question the legitimate claims of the political authorities. Hidden in this answer, which was blameless as far as the Romans were concerned, was the point that everything belongs to God and therefore God's claims must always be put first; a Christian attitude to the state always has to keep that in mind.

In the second question, the Sadducees who denied the possibility of resurrection life but tried to pullJesus into an argument about it, presented him with an absurd situation although its basis was in the law of Deuteronorny 25 :5:-6. This law was intended to make compassionate provision for a young widow who had no son to carry on the family. Jesus showed the Sadducees that they knew neither the meaning of the Scriptures nor the power of God in their lives (12:24--27).