TUESDAY 21st
John 2:13-17
NIV (v16) – ‘To those who sold doves he said, ‘Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!’’
ESV (v16) – ‘And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.’’
There are two occasions which we read in Scripture of Jesus getting angry with what he saw going on in the temple. Here at the commencement of his ministry and then again in the week he entered Jerusalem before going to Calvary. (Luke 19:45-46 ‘. . . saying to them, ‘It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.’’)
The traders certainly had not learned the lesson the first time! But let us be honest here, how often do we need to learn a lesson the hard way, more than once!
The account at the beginning of his ministry, indicates that Jesus was not happy that the Jewish traders were making what was the temple, the House of God into a market place, I don’t think that Jesus’ reaction and his comments mean that we should never allow buying and selling in the ‘Church’ as we would call our building today, rather than a ‘Temple’, but what I do think he is saying is that buying and selling should not become the primary purpose of the building, it should not be the focus and most certainly should not be what the church relies on to be successful. The local church should survive on the giving of the people in the tithes and offerings. That should be its benchmark for survival, my personal view is that if a local church for example sells coffee, it should be sold at a much cheaper cost than say a market place coffee shop, because they are extortionate in their prices, they are profit, profit, profit! whereas in a Church it should be to cover costs, or for raising funds for a godly purpose. I know that my personal view here may be considered extreme by some, but if a Church needs commercial enterprise to survive, then it is operating beyond what it has been called to be. What we discover about the traders in the temple, is that they were actually ripping the people off, they were overcharging, they were taking advantage of the poor who needed to buy a dove or pigeon for their sacrifice and were being extortionately over charged and if they could not afford the prices were being marginalised or left out.
In the example before Jesus went to Calvary, he was indignant that they had made the ‘house of God’ into a den of robbers when it should have been a ‘house of prayer’. Their priorities for the house of God were all wrong! We always need to remember that if a building has been dedicated to the glory of God and for corporate worship, then that must be its priority and emphasis.
Back in the Old Testament, when the temple was built and dedicated to the glory of God, we read that as soon as Solomon had finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. It continues that the priests could not enter the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house! The people responded by bowing with their faces to the ground and worshiped giving thanks to the Lord. (2 Chronicles 71-3) I wonder how Jesus would react if he physically entered many Churches today? Again, knowing that many wouldn’t agree with me on this point in the modern Church today, but I will say it, we don’t need our churches to be fitted out with black curtains or black painted walls, we don’t need flashing lights, we don’t need smoke machines, what we desperately need is Churches and congregations who are seeking God in such a way that as we worship, the glory of the Lord fills the house. My prayer is that Jesus will be pleased with who we are and with what we do in Emmanuel Pentecostal Church, so that when we regather, we will know his presence among us in a powerful way.