On Line Bible Study - For the Week October 17-23, 2011

Lesson 515

John 2: ¹³ When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. ¹⁵ So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

¹⁸ The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

²⁰ They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” ²¹ But the temple he had spoken of was his body. ²² After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

²³ Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. ²⁴ But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. ²⁵ He did not need human testimony about them, for he knew what was in them.

For Mark, Matthew and Luke, this event of 'cleansing the Temple' comes at the end of Jesus' public ministry, just days before his crucifixion. In John it occurs at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. Only John makes mention of a whip, and the above text suggests the whip was used on the beasts. Father Raymond Brown translates this verse such that it suggests the whip was used on the people. Only in John is there the reference to the 'cattle and sheep'.

There are other differences between the Synoptics and John as well. The question of Jesus' authority, for example ... it emerges in Matthew, Mark and Luke a bit later in that narrative relative to the cleansing of the temple than in John. The issue of Jesus raising the temple in three days - that is a line attributed to false witnesses at Jesus' trial in Matthew and Mark (Matthew 26:61 & Mark 14:58 respectively). In John, Jesus actually says the words. How do we account for these differences?

We are told in Verse 22 that what Jesus meant by "...destroy this temple..." was not fully understood until after the resurrection. But there may have been an immediate meaning to his cleansing of the temple that had prophetic overtones which are still applicable today. There was corruption in the 'house of the Lord', proclaimed the prophet Jeremiah.

Recalling that the Temple represented not only the spiritual life of the people, but the civic life as well, we are left wondering what Jesus might do in the midst of those who take advantage of the poor in our own day. How would he react in the midst of systems where corruption and greed were the rule of the day? What is it that needs to be overturned in order for justice to prevail, and for fairness to have its say?

From both a theological and a pragmatic perspective, we are in a similar situation now that people were in two thousand years ago: The powers-that-be need a good scrubbing.