WEEKLY SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON
An international Sunday school lesson commentary
For Sunday April 6, 2014
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JESUS CLEANSES THE TEMPLE
(We are called to integrity and holiness)
(Mark 11:15-19, Isaiah 56:6-8, & Jeremiah 7:1-15)
Week in and week out I continue to see how we as a professed Christian
body continue to go to GOD’s House and “play church” with each other. Our worship
in the church is not really worship of GOD at all, but rather, it is just us
getting together and entertaining ourselves under the guise that we are
praising and worshipping GOD.
In Isaiah chapter 56, verses 6-8, because the
Jews had rejected GOD, even in HIS OWN house, the prophet Isaiah delivers a
message from GOD that HE will rain HIS special blessings upon all Gentiles who commit
themselves to HIM, serve HIM, love HIS name, worship HIM, and do not desecrate
HIS Sabbath day of rest. In other words, any Gentile who is willing to accept
the covenant that HE made with the Jews, HE will honor them also with HIS
blessing.
GOD goes on to also promise Gentiles that
HE will bring them to HIS holy mountain of Jerusalem and fill them with joy in
HIS “House of Prayer”. Here GOD declares that HIS temple will be called a house
of prayer for all nations, not just HIS people in Israel.
In Jeremiah chapter 7, in the prophet’s brief
“temple address”, verses 1-15, Jeremiah sternly warns the people about their
wreckless disrespect of GOD’s temple. The temple, at that time, had become a
place of superstitious fetishes, where false prophets tried to assure the
people of Judah that they were safe there regardless of what they might do. They
believed that GOD would never destroy the place where HE had placed HIS name
here on earth. They believed that the church and Judah were completely safe
from GOD’s judgment simply because they were GOD’s chosen nation.
Jeremiah’s sermon serves to do away with such
foolishness and superstitions, that were by then, the beliefs of most of the
faithful in the church community. Here GOD sought to warn the people of Judah,
through Jeremiah, that their safety did not lie within the confines of their defiled
temple, or their nation, but rather, it would depend upon the moral, social,
and religious reforms, that, at that time, were sorely needed (Vs.6-10).
In this passage (v.11), GOD refers to the
temple as a “den of thieves”, a place where robbers came to hang out and hide in
search of new victims. It is a disturbing analogy, although it accurately
described the activity in and around this, once sacred, edifice in Jerusalem.
In verse 12 GOD invites Judah to take a
look at Shiloh and what happened to the tabernacle there, during the days of
the Judges. At that time HE allowed the Philistines to capture the “Ark of the
Covenant”, the most sacred object in Israel’s religion, and then, HE destroyed
Shiloh itself.
This history lesson served to show the
people of Judah that their confidence in the safety of the temple and Judah was
sadly misplaced, and that GOD can and will destroy the temple, and Jerusalem,
if they didn’t get their act together real soon.
All during the time when the Israelites
were committing their evil deeds, the LORD had repeatedly spoken to them,
through various prophets, however, HIS warnings went largely unheeded. In this
instance in the book of Jeremiah, GOD was promising to send HIS beloved nation
into exile for 70 years, which was one year for every “Sabbath Year Rest” (see
Leviticus 25:1-7) that they had ignored, 70 violations in all, during a 490
year period. And as all of biblical history has shown, GOD always gives us
numerous warnings, before HE exacts HIS punishment on us.
And finally we see in Mark chapter 11,
verses 15-22, JESUS, the SON of the
Most High GOD, arriving in Jerusalem, where HE went directly to the Temple and
cast out the unsavory characters that could still be found within. And so we
find that, just as HIS FATHER GOD had to do many years earlier, so too, JESUS
had to also do at the Church House in HIS day. And just as man never learns,
still the church must be cleansed again in this day and age, and, it will be.
In the Greek,
the word New Testament writers sometimes use to describe GOD’s discipline, (as in
“the goodness by which HE rebukes and disciplines us), is “agathosune” (
ag-ath-o-soo-nay). It is a word that does not occur in secular Greek. This is
the word that applies to JESUS’ actions in verses 15-17, when HE ejected the
robbers and moneychangers from the temple because they had desecrated GOD’s Holy Place
By
overcharging the people for animals, used to give as sacrifices to GOD at the
Temple, and, by charging them too large of a fee to convert their money over to
the proper local currency, they were, in effect, blocking these people from
worshipping GOD. Here, JESUS seeks to remind us not to block anyone from worshipping
GOD, and, that GOD loves, not just the Jews, but, all the nations of the world.
There is,
perhaps, no other place in Scriptures, where we feel reminded, that we need to
make a more conscious effort to be fair in our dealings with each other. There
were many crooked people in the Temple
Court
Oftentimes nowadays, many ministers of GOD,
can be more concerned, with imposing their ways of doing things, on their
congregation, than they are, with preaching and teaching the true word of GOD.
Remember, JESUS didn’t send everyone in the temple away that day, but rather,
it was only those who were blocking the worship of GOD, by making it difficult,
or impossible for the poorest among them to afford animal sacrifices used in
worship of HIM.
Man’s exploitation of man will
always provoke the wrath of GOD, and especially when it is done under the guise
of Christianity. “Need” is never sent away empty by CHRIST JESUS, and HIS anger
is never “negative”. GOD’s anger is always geared toward the positive helping
of those who are in need. Such will always be the way of GOD’s “agathosune” (discipline)
upon mankind.
A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander
LARRY D. ALEXANDER- Official
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