Growing In Godliness Blog
“Jesus Cleanses the Temple”
Categories: Author: Paul Earnhart, Church, JesusJesus Cleanses the Temple
By Paul Earnhart
When Jesus went to Jerusalem for the first time after the beginning of His personal ministry, we are told that He visited the temple and found merchants who were selling oxen, sheep and doves. There were also money changers exchanging the money which the people ordinarily used into the kind of money that was accepted for offerings in the temple.
Jesus was greatly disturbed by what He saw. John tells us that “He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, ‘Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a house of merchandise.’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for Thy house will consume Me.’” (John 2:15-17)
God does not have a material house today, such as the temple was in those days. But the church is His house as Peter wrote to Christians in 1 Peter 2:5 saying, “You also, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual house.”
But most churches today have virtually lost their spiritual emphasis. In some cases, they have again become houses of merchandise; they seem to exist to make money. In some other cases they have become country clubs with all kinds of recreation equipment and dining facilities. Church funds are used more for social purposes than for spiritual activities, and more emphasis is placed on entertainment than on worship and Bible teaching.
I wonder what Jesus would do if He should visit a modern church. I wonder if He would not again engage in a general house-cleaning. If we are like Jesus “consumed with zeal for our Father’s house” (John 2:17), we will look again at God’s plan for His house and make certain that the church of which we are a part is what God intends for it to be, not what men want it to be.
