Today's Scripture Reading (October 19, 2022): 2 Chronicles 2
During Passover week, Jesus
entered the Temple in Jerusalem and didn't like what he found. We often seem to think that the
problem that Jesus discovered was that commerce, the buying and selling of stuff, was taking place in the Temple. And as a
result, some churches have become hesitant to allow the buying and selling of
anything inside the church. But the truth was much worse. What was
being sold in the Temple
were the specific things needed to worship the God of Israel; the sacrifices and Temple coins.
Sacrifices needed to be perfect. Sure, you could bring a newborn lamb
from your flock at home, but the experts at the Temple had become specialists at finding the imperfections in a sacrifice. So, if you brought that first-born lamb from your flock to be sacrificed at the Temple, there was
an excellent possibility that you would be returning home with the same lamb because the priests had rejected your sacrifice. Instead, the priests would offer to sell sacrifices
from their own herds. The lamb that you purchased would be guaranteed to pass
the Temple inspection. But it was going to cost you. These sacrifices were
being sold at an extremely inflated price.
The same was true for the
Temple coinage. The Temple Tax had to be paid with Temple currency. Wherever
you came from, that currency would need to be exchanged for a Temple coin, and
again, the money changers at the Temple inflated the prices of the Temple Coin, which meant that paying the
Temple tax was going to cost you significantly more than it should have.
All of this had one major
effect; it often stopped the poor from fulfilling their
religious obligations. They simply couldn't afford the inflated prices they were being forced
to pay. So, they didn't.
They didn't partake in the sacrificial system, didn't bother to come to the
Temple even during compulsory days, and didn't believe that it was even possible for them to be full-fledged worshipers of the God of Israel. Oh, some came, but they were made
to feel like they were second class citizens, and not worthy of God's
attention. Being an observant Jew had become a rich man's game.
Enter Jesus. He entered the
Temple and declared the charge he had against them to all present. "Is
it not written: 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But
you have made it 'a den of robbers'" (Mark 11:17). The quote is actually
from Isaiah, spoken sometime near the end of the Babylonian Exile. At the time
it was written, the Second or Zerubbabel's Temple was the prophet's focus, and
later it would become the place where Jesus would throw out the moneychangers.
Isaiah had written
And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord
to minister to him,
to love the name of
the Lord,
and to be his servants,
all who keep the
Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy
mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and
sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations" (Isaiah 56:6-7)
Once
again, we are confronted with the idea that the Temple in Jerusalem, both
Solomon's and Zerubbabel's, was intended not just for the Jews but for the
world. Isaiah insists that Gentiles or non-Jewish people would be brought to
God's holy mountain. These Gentiles would love God, keep the Sabbath and hold
fast to the Covenant of God. Because of that, it would be a house of prayer for
the nations and not just a house of prayer for Israel. So maybe it shouldn't be
a surprise that foreigners also played a key role in the construction of
Solomon's Temple. The Temple used both material and men foreign to Israel in
its construction. From the very beginning, the Temple was embraced by those
living in Israel as well as those living outside of the Jewish religious
system.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading:
2 Chronicles 3
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