The Internet is upset about the entrance of protesters in Minneapolis into a Baptist church tgis past weekend. On one side of the ideological divide stands the Conservative Chorus proclaiming that Christ would never have done such a thing, & on the other side, those who support the protesters &/or their general message remind us that Yeshua turned over the moneylenders’ tables violently, etc.
Why don’t we all just sit down & look at what the Bible itself has to say about what was happening that day?
And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 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, 16 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’?”
17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there. (Matthew 21:12–17, ESV)
Yeshua enters the temple courts. He sees what is going on. He dramatically overturns the tables, excoriating the people — especially their leaders — for turning the temple courts into an exercise in money making & gluttony, then engages in medical missions & ministers to adults & children.
There is more going on here than overturning tables. He is there engaging in a very large prophetic sign act & is setting the stage for a more direct face to face verbal confrontation with the Sanhedrin in the presence of many witnesses.
The next day, He enters the temple &, for all intents and purposes, sits in the Seat of Moses & exposes the majority of the Sanhedrin, eventually pronouncing 7 woes upon them. These acts incense Annas & Caiphas so much that they plot to have Yeshua kidnapped & put on trial & then punt to Rome (Pilate) in order to execute Him.
Thus, we have here two distinct acts that form part of a larger whole. The overturning of the tables & the ministry to the people dramatizes what was to happen the next day — the direct confrontation with the Sanhedrin & His judgment of them, which is a microcosm of a much larger drama, namely the judgment of Israel & the World System & institutionalized sloth, greed/gluttony, bigotry, & mutually assured destruction that the world loves.
Maybe it is tacky for protesters to storm a church, but the fact of the matter is that what they experienced is a minor inconvenience compared to what the People of Minneapolis have had to endure lately, as have others in CA, DC, & NC. A sign act was done to draw attention to this. The Bible leans toward the protestors in this affair & we all ought to be lamenting that our nation has gone downhill this far while our President talks all up out his head about Greenland & sends missives to Norway.
May God have mercy on us all, & may we all LOOK UP!
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