Matthew 21:12–17
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
We come today to a familiar scene, but familiarity can be a dangerous thing. We have turned the cleansing of the Temple into a tidy, almost respectable, historical event. We imagine Jesus being a bit stern, perhaps, like a frustrated librarian shushing noisy patrons. This is the King inspecting His own house and finding it has been turned into a flea market run by gangsters. But He did not come to admire the architecture or to approve of their bustling religious activity. He came as a refiner's fire, to purge and to purify. What He found was a worship system that had been thoroughly corrupted. It had become a barrier to God, not a bridge. It was designed to keep people out, not bring them in. And it was all being done under the guise of religious necessity.