Dear Friend,

“As he taught them, he said, '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).

According to the Law of Moses (Exodus 30:13-16), the annual temple obligation of all Israelites had to be paid using the 'temple shekel.' But this dedicated money no longer existed. Roman coins were the currency of the day. Closest in kind to the original temple shekel was the Phoenician shekel. Temple authorities at the time of Jesus insisted that worshipers change their Roman coins for Phoenician shekels, and then make their contribution. This is where the currency traders in the temple precinct came in. Under the supervision of the priests, the money-changers did brisk commerce-not unlike the currency exchange businesses at today's international airports.

The temple had become a business. Jesus attacked its custodians for their flagrant misrepresentation of the temple's God. The trade in the courtyard proclaimed an entrepreneurial God; a God eager for profit.

Jesus’ expulsion of the temple traders is the one instance we have in his life's record, where passion and anger rose in him to the point of a display of force. His outrage can only be appreciated when we realize that to him, the nature of God and the commercial spirit are mutually exclusive.

Jesus’ temple raid, which resulted in the eviction of those who had set up businesses there, is consistent with Zechariah's vision of the re-establishment of genuine worship in the Jerusalem temple. When that day comes “there will no longer be a merchant in the house of the Lord” (Zechariah 14:21).

The ideal house for the worship of the one true God is one which has no room for the merchant spirit. By means of buying and selling, human beings have chosen to conduct their affairs and their relations with one another. But this is the exact opposite of God's way. In the divine economy, everything is given away.

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost” (Isaiah 55:1).

God is not a merchant; he is a giver; a “good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over” (Luke 6:38), giver. The good news of Christianity comes from this feature of God's character. The great boon for human existence that Christians know of, which is their privilege to share with the world is that God is eager to lavish his favors on whosoever will. He waits to send forth his Son into the temple of our being; there to overturn what is contrary to his Spirit, so that individuals and churches be-not commercial centers-but places of refuge where the alien and the poor can draw near and shelter in the generosity and love of God.

God make it so in your life and mine.

Yours in Him,

Ron J. Allen.