Job 19-21, Matthew 21: 1-17, Psalm 19: 7-14
Matthew 21: 12-13 (ESV)
“And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and
bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and
the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house
shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
In verses 12 and 13 from Matthew 21, we read about the
famous scene where Jesus drove out all of the money-changers in the Temple.
Many people have interpreted these verses to mean that the church cannot ask
people for money or something about Jesus not like money. But the people who
write Bible commentaries have written that the money-changers were located in
the outer courts of the Temple, which was the only place that the Gentiles
could pray. It must have been hard for the Gentiles to pray since their whole
space had been essentially turned into a market. I love how Jesus had
compassion for Gentiles as well as Jews. Jesus wanted the Temple to be somewhere
where all could pray, and not just Jews. The message of Jesus Christ spread very
rapidly among the Gentiles first, so we in these verses how the God’s plan to
include the Gentiles started with the compassionate act of Christ demanding that
the prayer space for the Gentiles be as holy as the prayer space for the Jews.
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