Bible Study

 Replacing the Temple: Multiplying Points of Contact

1 Kings 8:22-53; Mark 11:11-25; Matthew 21:12-17; John 2:13-22

[Imperative in this sermon:

Offer multiple points of contact for Christian transformation:

  1. representing the glory and character of God.
  2. providing answers for the prayers of desperate people.
  3. offering forgiveness for penitent people.  
  4. extending spiritual awakening for all the peoples of the earth.]

 

Our Mission: Multiplying Points of Contact for Christian Transformation  

One way of describing our mission as the church of Jesus Christ is: “multiplying points of contact for Christian transformation.” This mission is rooted in God’s purposes for the Jerusalem temple, in Jesus’ criticism of the temple’s fruitlessness, and in Jesus’ instructions to his disciples.

Solomon's Prayer for the Jerusalem Temple

As Solomon dedicated the temple that he had built for the Lord, he acknowledged that no temple could contain the Lord, but that the Lord had promised that his name (identifiable presence) would be there (1 Kings 8:29), and so Solomon prayed that the temple could be a point of contact for:

1. representing the glory and character of God

Solomon affirmed that there was no other God like the Lord, keeping covenant and demonstrating steadfast love. People could encounter God at the temple (1 Kings 8:23).

2. providing answers for the prayers of desperate people

Solomon prayed that when there were drought, famine, pestilence, blight, mildew, locust, caterpillar, enemy army, exile, plague, sickness, or other calamities,  God would answer the pleas that his people made at the temple (1 Kings 8:33-40 and other verses). 

3. offering forgiveness for penitent people

 

Solomon prayed that, when sinners come to the temple and say, ‘We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly,’ if they repent with all their mind and with all their heart, God would hear and forgive (1 Kings 8: 46-51).

4. extending spiritual awakening for all the peoples of the earth

Solomon prayed that, when a foreigner worships at the temple, the Lord would hear and answer, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know the Lord’s  name  (1 Kings 8:41-43).

The Jerusalem Temple in Jesus' Time

Solomon’s temple was built nearly a thousand years before the time of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus was dealing with a later temple building (Herod's) and later temple officials (the sanhedrin consisted of Sadducean priests and Pharisaic scribes).  Buildings and rulers come and go, but the purposes belong to God and endure.

Jesus had been traveling through Galilee showing the women, children, poor, blind, lame, lepers, outcasts, sinners, and foreigners that the reigning and redeeming power of God could act on their behalf.

But his message was in contrast to the experience such people would have had in visiting the Jerusalem temple, their central place of religious authority. At the temple, women children, foreigners, moral outcasts, the maimed, the ill, and the poor were at best second class citizens. 

The poor might attempt to bring their own animals for sacrificial offerings, but, if they did not pass inspection, they would have to buy a pre-approved animal from the temple vendors. Even the Roman money of daily commerce had to be exchanged for temple money in order to make a monetary offering, and the money-changers profited on the exchange. That may have been extortion, but the real robbery was that God’s children were kept from experiencing the intended benefits of the temple.

The experience at the temple of those to whom Jesus had given hope would have been discouraging, perhaps even crushing. In contrast to Solomon’s prayer, Jesus saw that the temple had been hijacked for unfruitful purposes. Rather than helping broken people find God, the temple system was driving people to despair. Jesus condemned the temple and cursed it as fruitless. It was:

  1. not representing the glory and character of God.
  2. not providing answers for the prayers of desperate people.
  3. not offering forgiveness/atonement for penitent people.  
  4. not extending spiritual awakening for all the peoples of the earth.

What the Scriptures Tell Us about Why Jesus Cleared the Temple

Mark, Matthew, and Luke record Jesus’ clearing of the temple on Monday of Holy Week. John reports either the same or a similar event much earlier in his Gospel. It is generally best to study each Gospel account separately, but, so that we can quickly see the points that Jesus makes in clearing the temple, I will combine the accounts from the Four Gospels into one account (JN in blue, Mk in black, MT in green, Lk not needed in this summary).

The story of Jesus’ clearing the temple is surrounded by Mark’s report about Jesus’ cursing of an unfruitful fig tree, a strange report that symbolically foretells the coming destruction of the unfruitful temple. By the end of the second half of the fig tree report, Jesus is preparing his disciples to replace the temple by fulfilling its mission of building faith and offering forgiveness.

JN: The Passover … was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. MK: And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

 

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it. And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple…

 

JN: In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen.

 

And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 

 

And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’(Isaiah 56:7)? But you have made it a den of robbers” (Jeremiah 7:11). JN: His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me” (Psalm 69:9).

 

MT: And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” (Psalm 8:2).

 

JN: So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

 

MK: And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.  MT: And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.

 

MK: As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” 

 

And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 

 

And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

The Mission of Jesus' Disciples and Church

Jesus speaks to his disciples about faith and forgiveness. In its context of Jesus’ dealings with the Jerusalem temple (Mark 11:11-26), the point is that the fellowship of the disciples is to replace the purposes of the fruitless temple. The disciples’ missionary fellowship, of which our church is an extension, is to offer points of contact for:

  1. representing the glory and character of God.
  2. providing answers for the prayers of desperate people.
  3. offering forgiveness/atonement for penitent people.  
  4. extending spiritual awakening for all the peoples of the earth.

The factor that enables the disciples to take on the role of being a new and living temple is that they will manifest the spiritual presence of Jesus:  “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matthew 18:20). Where Jesus is, there the purposes of the temple can be fulfilled.

Jesus was proclaiming the reign of God in the lives of believers, the reign of God’s holiness, love and power. Jesus never failed to be loving as he reached out to people who had failed morally, but also he never watered down a single item in God’s perfect will. It would no longer be the reign of God if it were watered down. Jesus wants his church to multiply points of contact with God’s reign.

The church of Jesus Christ is not designed to be an institution, but to be an active, mobile fellowship of faith and mission, manifesting the spiritual presence of its living Lord and Savior. We are to offer what the Jerusalem temple failed to offer, multiplying points of contact for restoring the lost and wounded to God.

Not one of us is righteous, nor can we make ourselves so. Yet not one of us is excused from the ultimate goal of Christlike perfection. The only hope for ourselves and others is that God reigns in love through wounded healers like us. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are commissioned to represent the saving, healing, transforming power of the reigning God.

Jesus replaced the temple. Wherever Jesus was, was the new location of divine holiness and cleansing power. Then, after his resurrection, Jesus turned to his disciples and said, in effect, “Tag. You’re It.”  The missionary fellowship of believers in Jesus is the new and living temple of God’s presence in this world. 

Our mission is to offer multiple points of contact for Christian transformation:

  1. representing the glory and character of God.
  2. providing answers for the prayers of desperate people.
  3. offering forgiveness/atonement for penitent people.  
  4. extending spiritual awakening for all the peoples of the earth.

Examples of Multiplying Points of Contact

Donna, in her upper seventies, advertises her services as an English tutor in order to have points of contact with bright young adults from other lands. She often ends up introducing Islamic students to their first contact with real Christians. She meets her students at Starbucks, takes an interest in their lives, looks for an opportunity to talk to them about the differences between merely cultural Christianity and the real thing, and then invites them to events where they can encounter real Christians. Donna is multiplying points of contact for Christian transformation.

Our Christview student Susan is a visual artist with a wide following. She is doing her first specifically Christian artworks. Lila, who helped bring Susan to her current level Christian commitment, now works in Susan’s gallery, selling art. Lila often finds herself in conversations with customers about Christ. It is not unusual that she will pray with these customers about their needs for healing, protection, provision, wisdom, or restored relationships. Susan and Lila are multiplying their points of contact for Christian transformation.

Our youth group is developing a vision for a youth coffee house to meet two important goals: (1) a safe place for youth to hang out with their friends in a supervised environment, and (2) a place where there can be a variety of testimony to Jesus Christ. If multiplying points of contact for Christian transformation is our mission, the youth are dreaming of doing just that. The youth and their sponsors will be stretched by this endeavor, probably much farther than they now imagine. But it is a dream worthy of the church of Jesus Christ, and it deserves our full support. Perhaps those of us who are adults can learn something from this youth vision about how to multiply our own points of contact.

The Challenge

The challenge for each one of us is to consider how we might become part of multiplying points of contact for Christian transformation.

Jesus has found us, and his word to us is, “Tag. You’re it!”

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