Christ entered the temple and cast out the moneychangers, the dove sellers, and anyone else who bought and sold within the temple.
How dare people set up businesses within the temple, right?
But people traveled a long distance to get to temples in those days.
They needed a sacrificial animal, and so someone decided to sell doves to make it convenient.
The travelers had different currency than the local town, so they needed a money exchange for convenience to buy these doves.
I can’t help but think of the phrase “careful or casual”.
Casual worship often means convenient worship.
Are we more inclined to live our religion and show devotion to God when it is convenient? Do we bend some rules here and there because it’s just a whole lot easier than keeping a commandment ALL the time? Do we hope that someone at the temple can exchange our money and give us a sacrificial animal?
On the other hand, careful worship is often difficult worship. It is inconvenient.
It means staying up a few extra minutes to get that studying in. It means going out of your way to check on someone in need. It means time and sometimes even money. It means preparing to go in to the temple far before you step on temple grounds.
Christ reminds us during this Holy Week that convenient, casual worship is not acceptable in the House of the Lord.
He is looking for devoted, careful worshippers.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
2 Responses
I’ve thought long and hard about this instance my whole life. Christ…angry? In Ukraine (where I served my mission) people also travel QUITE a ways, nearly a whole day by train (or more depending on where from…Russia, or Armenia, etc.) They too, MUST buy things that are needed while there. They wish to worship right, and yet, have NO OTHER WAY to purchase the necessary clothing and materials to enter, other than in the temple (buying things online is EXTREMELY COMPLICATED to non-westernized nations). The clothes/garments are generally made within the temple or holy places, by the hands of sweet, temple-worthy, volunteer members and by means of tithes and sacrifice. Then they are offered to those who come through the doors in a humble, out-of-the way basement room at an extremely modest price to the members who have put MUCH into simply making the trip to the temple and being able to stay for a week. I get Christ’s righteous indignance all the more with the world’s current situation. People hoarding water, toilet paper, sanitizing products and wipes and other critical essentials only to later increase the prices at ridiculous rates to those who actually desperately need them. Perhaps making them even out of the reach of the especially poor–those who probably needed them most. When lives are on the line, this IS NOT okay. When spiritual lives are on the line, this IS NOT OKAY. Christ called this place a den of thieves for a reason. I imagine, perhaps the selling of items began honestly enough. But then the prices slowly rose, and began to be unreasonable, as the greed of the sellers grew, and they saw the possibility of riches and profit soar. The poor and humble who came through the doors probably struggled bit by bit and eventually became unable to get what they needed–became unable to complete these soul-saving rituals. Many who could still buy most likely began to be downright cheated because of seller’s unrighteous desires for wealth and unfair prices. Perhaps there was a number slip here, a misleading nudge of the scale there. All this, not even outside the House of the Lord, but WITHIN THE WALLS. Truly it had become a “den of thieves”, otherwise He might have let it pass as an necessary inconvenience. Instead of a place of sacrifice, humility, love and service (as are the temples of Ukraine), it had become a place of dishonesty, noise, filth (physically and spiritually) and profit. Where the temple is the epitomy of HIS love and ATONEMENT and SACRIFICE (becoming all to real in Christ’s heart and mind at the moment), THE MOST IMPORTANT KEY of us reaching home, of us finding hope and light in this world and the world to come…they were disgracing it. Here they were beyond just missing the point. They had let Satan and his tempations of the world TAKE OVER this most holy of places. This was too horrid to let abide. Satan had snuck his wiles into this Holy place, and had taken over till the sacredness of the place was covered in worldy sludge and the temple NEEDED cleansing!! I like your note of ease. Rarely is the right path easy, it’s true. However, I feel like His cleansing went far beyond that. This was HIS HOUSE. THE PLACE THAT CONNECTS US TO HOME. THE PLACE THAT MAKES HIS ATONEMENT COMPLETE THROUGH SACRED COVENANTS. I can’t imagine his disappointment and sorrow, having it weigh on His sacred shoulders what He was about to do. So, He did what needed to be done. It probably outraged the religious leaders who were fine with the ways things were–even most likely profitted from this pit of filth, and this outrage was probably one of the last straws leading up to Christ’s condemnation and death. Yet this was eternal life, salvation itself at stake. This HAD to be done.
Thank you so much for this response! And what a great perspective. I agree, and I think that’s part of the sneakiness of it all – it probably started off with good intentions for convenience, but then grew into something much worse. And great connections to the current situations today!