I've been teaching sunday school on the gospel of Mark and we're in chp.11. Jesus has been to the temple the day before and surveyed the situation and enters the temple again and begins to toss out the moneychangers and those who sold things to the pilgrims comeing to offer sacrifices for the feast. He says" My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves. " My question for you all is, Who are the thieves and what were/are they stealing?
I've got some thoughts but would love to hear from you guys.
Thanks Toby
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Tobsters - thanks for posting this! I'd like to read it again for myself, but my initial thoughts are this:
ReplyDeleteWho are the thieves? Anyone engaging in the transaction - buyer or seller.
What were they stealing? The worship that was rightfully due Him was being mis-directed to lesser gods. (consumerism, etc..)
Hey Tobe,
ReplyDeleteGood post!
The Lord's cleaning of the temple reminds me of:
Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are {in fact} unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 1 Cor 5:7-8
Along with whatever else this story conveys, is it also a symbolic object lesson? Like the foot washing episode in the upper room?
Instead of giving to God, the thieves were taking for themselves---mixing it up with mammon. And only Jesus would or could do anything about it.
I was reading John 10 today where we see,
ReplyDeleteVerily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber....The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have [it] more abundantly. John 10:1,10
And so I ask myself, are these thieves and the Mark 11 thieves two peas in a pod...or two thieves in a pod?
Toby, after your Sunday school class, you can update your post and fill us in on the 'consequentials'.