BARREN FAITH
Opening Prayer
Give me a heart like Yours, Jesus.
Read Matthew 21:12–17
Jesus at the Temple
12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
14 The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.
16 “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.
“Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read,
“‘From the lips of children and infants
you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”
17 And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
What grieves you? What angers you? Would these things grieve or anger God? Do your deepest longings echo God’s desires?Today we encounter an angry Jesus. First, he shows his fury in the Temple (12,13); then he curses a tree (18,19)! Both incidents are enacted parables.
The “Temple area” (12) refers to the Court of the Gentiles, where “foreigners” could join themselves to the covenant people in worshipping Israel’s God. Jesus surely yearned for the fulfillment of Isaiah 56:7, to see the Temple serving as “a house of prayer for all nations” (13). His anger burns when, instead, he finds profiteering merchants and money-lenders crowding this area, effectively hindering Gentiles from drawing near to God. The Temple-cleansing (12) isn’t just a denunciation of corruption, but points to a greater truth—the Temple itself is due for replacement (John 2:19–21).
The next day’s tree-cursing is neither random nor unrelated. The fig tree, lush with leaves, carried a promise of fruit—yet it turned out to be an empty promise (19). “Hungry” (18) for fruits of righteousness, Jesus was justifiably angry because, despite exhibiting the outward marks of religion, Israel yielded nothing more than barren legalism, ritualism, and ceremonialism. The immediate withering of the tree (19b) warns of impending judgment upon unfruitful Israel.
Apply
Paul warns against “having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Tim. 3:5). Is your faith limited to a “form” of words or rituals? Or is it a flourishing, fruitful faith?
Closing prayer
God, deepen my faith in You that I may pass beyond the forms of religion to a true relationship.
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