So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 16 And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. 17 Then He taught, saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ” 18 And the scribes and chief priests heard it and sought how they might destroy Him; for they feared Him, because all the people were astonished at His teaching. 19 When evening had come, He went out of the city.

– Mark 11:15-19 (NKJV)

The temple was a place of worship. It had places for different people to go. The place referred to here was probably the outer court also known as the court of the gentiles. It was a place where those folks who were not born Jewish could come pray and worship God. The problem was that there was no longer room for people to come and pray because it was filled with smelly animals for sacrifice and the people selling them were selling them at marked up prices (like buying a coke at a theme park).

What the people were doing was wrong, but it wasn’t just wrong, it was communicating the wrong message to everyone. It was saying that God doesn’t have room for people who weren’t ethnically Jewish. That was bad for little Jewish boys and girls to grow up believing and it was bad for people of other nationalities who were coming to faith in God and wanted to worship him. Then it was also wrong to take advantage of people. You shouldn’t do that anywhere, but you especially shouldn’t extort people in a place that was built for prayer and worship to the one true God (as if he didn’t know).

So Jesus has a righteous zeal here. We’ve been watching Jesus take up for the poor and oppressed and now we see him come toe to toe with the leaders who should have been looking for the people but have instead been oppressing them. Their reaction is cowardly. They can’t address Jesus from the scripture because they know they are wrong and so privately they seek to kill Jesus.

This passage teaches us a few things. One we should not extort others, especially in the worship of God. Two, we should be careful of the image we present to others by our actions and their implications of what we believe about God. Three, we need to examine our hearts to see if we are submitting ourselves to be used by God for His will or if we are attempting to use God to carry out our own corrupt will.

Father, We love you and want to grow in knowledge of you and your word. We are grateful that Jesus cleansed the temple and set the record straight on the purpose of the temple and the activities that should go on in a house of worship. We pray that our lives would be clean of double or perverse motives. Let us love one another and not take advantage of others. Let us be diligent to take the gospel to all nations. Give us discernment as we apply your word to our lives. In Jesus Name, Amen.