For some time now I have been sharing at Church the teachings of Jesus.
What He taught directly and indirectly. I am doing this by tracing His steps
through the Bible lands and teaching what He was saying or doing.
I start with Jesus in Jerusalem during the Passover:
Now the Passover of the Jews was at
hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold
oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had
made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and
the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He
said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of
merchandise!” Then His disciples
remembered that it was written, t “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up. John 2:17
Jesus came
to the temple and found a group offering their services of providing animals
for sacrifice, for a price, and exchanging “heathen” money for temple coinage.
It is assumed they are cheating the worshippers. But Jesus makes only one
accusation. They were merchandising the House of God. They were making money
off the worshippers for a profit. Now I’ll not mention what Keith Green calls
Jesus Junk”. Which are items made for sale to Christians. Cheaply made trinkets
with a fish or dove stamped on it. But I speaking of instead of allowing the
Church to allow the Holy Spirit to draw worshippers, but Churches advertising
services that they supply in order to draw other Christians away from their
Churches or fellowships. Depending on a good marketing firm to gain attendance
is a current popular trend. I see Jesus really having a problem with this. They
are trusting worldly ways to grow a Church. Now I have seen some of these
Churches gaining attendance and some even getting saved and baptized. I’m not
going to judge them in this. I think the Lord will not turn people away when
their hearts are in the right place, or until the Lord reveals the truth to
them. Some are doing this because it is the only way they know.
Here in
these verses, the Lord is showing how He feels about this practice. In case you
did not know, this is the first of two times the Lord does this. The second
time, the Jewish leaders put a price on His head. Maybe the Lord is allowing
this in our Churches now and soon these worldly Christians reached by worldly
ways will mature and become disciples in Christ. The Lord is patent, He had
seen these people in the people many times before, but when it was time to
change, He showed the way. Maybe He spoke against this practice when He was
speaking to the teachers back when he was 12 and got left in Jerusalem by His
parents. So carry on in the name of the Lord, but when the time comes to change
Bride’s ways, it is time. Let’s get the same zeal for the House of God as Jesus
had. When the Groom comes for the Bride, He wants her in a wedding gown, not a
sales apron.
