12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ den.” 14 And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He had done, and the children who were shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became indignant 16 and said to Him, “Do You hear what these children are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise for Yourself’?” 17 And He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.
King Jesus, after His “triumphal entry” went immediately to the temple, the center of Jewish spiritual life. It is not difficult to imagine Him angrily kicking out the merchandisers of religious paraphernalia. He created quite the ruckus, disrupting the status quo, as perverse and blatant as it had become.
There will always be a legitimate need for some commercial activity related to spirituality. Books written for the edification of believers, for example, cost money to publish. Buildings where congregational worship takes place need purchasing and maintenance, all of which costs money. Mission organizations provide a useful function in exchanging donor’s funds into a currency useful on the mission field. In Jesus’ time, money changers performed what normally would have been a useful service, namely to provide currency exchange for Jews coming to donate their temple tax and other offerings.
However, those Jesus kicked out were apparently skimming extra off the top for themselves—it was nothing more than a business for their own benefit. The same with those selling doves—poor people could bring money, purchase doves for sacrificing. Again, prices were inflated.
Jesus acted on two prerogatives. First, as the King, He rebuked the merchants for their extortion, calling the place where this took place “a robber’s den.” Second, as the Son He asserted, in quotingIsaiah 56:7, that the temple was, “My house,” and its purpose was for prayer and not for making money (seeLuke 2:49, where as a child He spoke of the temple as “My Father’s house,” alsoJohn 2:16). The simple folks accepted all this, including the blind and the lame. The religious leaders were indignant. What a contrast with Jesus’ being indignant at the treatment of the temple of God!
Lord, help me not to be blinded by greed for money or feel indignant when my religious status quo is disrupted, rather than seeing my need for genuine prayer.
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