Matthew 21:12-22; Mark 11:12-19; Luke 19:45-48
Most scholars believe that Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple on the Monday of Holy week so I thought I’d post about it today.
I have always wondered about the time Jesus got mad and threw the money changers out of the temple. (Matthew 21, Luke 19, Mark 11) I wondered why everybody thought it was OK in the first place? It seems to me like common sense would tell you that you shouldn’t sell stuff in church. Anyway, here’s what I discovered: They weren’t actually in the temple, but in an area outside the temple. There was the temple, and outside it was the temple court, and then outside that was a wall called the “Soreq.” This wall was the closest that a gentile could get to the temple court and it was just outside this wall where the moneychangers were. The wall was about 5 feet and was basically designed to keep the “unacceptable” non-Jewish people out of the temple court. Jesus was mad that they were selling stuff in church, but He was even more mad that they had such disregard for the (non-Jewish) gentiles who were there to worship. When He got mad He quoted a verse from Isaiah 56:7 which called the temple “a house of prayer for all the nations.” Notice the “all the nations” phrase. I always saw the “house of prayer” part, but. . . Anyway, He was mad that they were treating this particular group of people as outsiders when all along God had included them. Check out the verse before that one – Isaiah 56:6-7 “Foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, to love the name of the Lord. . . .these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. For my house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.” Anyway, I just thought that explained the verse a bit more to me.
As I reflect on Holy Week, this story makes me ask myself, “Who are the people that I hinder from hearing the Gospel? What parts of my life would Jesus want to overturn?” This also makes me grateful for Jesus’ outright defense of the gentiles right to worship. (I am one of them.) I’m grateful that it is a House of Prayer for “All Nations.”
Bonus info:
Here’s a bit more about the “Soreq.” In Acts 21:27-32 Paul is accused of bringing a non-Jew past the Soreq and into the temple court. They’re actually so mad that they tried to kill him. Later on, in Ephesians 2:14 Paul is talking about gentiles and Jews being “one” in Christ and he says that Christ has “destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.” Could it be that he was referring to this literal wall??
Cool stuff! I love finding things like this ’cause it helps me read the scriptures more like I think the Jewish people would have back when they were written.
Info source: www.followtherabbi.com
