STRANGE WAY
Opening Prayer
Lord God, remove anything that might distract my focus as I prepare to encounter you through your Word now.
Read JOHN 2:13–25
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Jesus Clears the Temple Courts
13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”[a]
18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
23 Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name.[b] 24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. 25 He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.
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
Ask God to remove anything that might distract your focus as you prepare to encounter him through his Word now.An old proverb states that ‘a new broom sweeps clean’, meaning that those newly appointed to positions of authority often make sweeping changes to reinvigorate an organization. Jesus’ ‘sweeping clean’ of the Jerusalem Temple (vv. 15, 16) goes much further. He isn’t interested in reinvigorating the temple; he is demonstrating that he replaces the temple! The dramatic public disturbance declares that the temple will soon be obsolete.
The clue to this interpretation of events is Jesus’ likening of his own body to a temple (vv. 19–21), which is effectively a claim that he—and no longer the temple building—is now the focal point of God’s presence on earth. The old temple and its feasts, including Passover (v. 13), pointed to Jesus and his sacrificial death as the Lamb of God—his being consumed by zeal for the family (‘house’) of God (v. 17). With the Word now made flesh, temple worship and ritual, like ceremonial washing, must give way to worship of Jesus the Messiah.
The anger of Jesus toward the temple traders suggests that the intended symbolic significance of the temple and its offerings had long since been sacrificed to concern for commercial interests. When our own religious rituals cease to be at the heart of our relationship with God through Christ, they, too, cease to be relevant.
Apply
What lessons, if any, can churches learn from Jesus’ clearing of the temple regarding their involvement in commercial enterprise?
Closing prayer
Holy Spirit, please show me if anything in my walk with Jesus stands in the way of heartfelt and uncompromising worship. Help me, that my worship would not distract but draw others to my Savior.
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