Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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On money lenders and impure motives

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This morning I read the story in Mark 11 of Jesus cleansing the Temple. He was angry with those who were using worship at the Temple for their own gain. Since most of us haven’t been guilty of selling birds or running a currency exchange in the back of the church, we are afforded the opportunity to smugly look down on those rascals that Jesus tossed out.

But it strikes me that I have been guilty of attending church for wrong reasons. A sense of obligation is not a good reason. Fear of criticism is not a good reason. The desire to feel good is not a good reason. The only valid reason to worship is because my understanding of who I am and who God is requires me to gather with others to bring praise to the God who loves us. Like those money changers, I can be guilty of worshiping me while pretending to worship God.

On the other hand, I can look back and see that even when my motive has not been pure (can my motives ever be totally pure?), I have grown in my relationship with God as a result of attending church. God can minister to me even when I’m not interacting with him appropriately. If we learn anything from Christ it is that God does not stand on his dignity when the welfare of his children is at stake.

The point of this post is to challenge myself and others to see that we are more like those against whom Jesus acts than we would like to admit. The reason that those characters are in the Bible is to challenge us to be something different. But without a work of Grace in our lives, we will gravitate toward those very behaviors.

There is not one tendency of the Pharisees that I have not seen in my own heart. Thankfully, as I draw closer to Jesus these tendencies have reduced control in my life, but they are still there.

Mark 7:20-23 records Jesus as saying:

“What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

The point is not to make believers to be worse than we really are, but to remind us that the tendency toward these behaviors lies within us. We are in constant need of Grace and in constant need to be gracious to others.

Seven Types of Robbers In The House Of Prayer

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House of Prayer“My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers” is a statement of Jesus found in Luke 19:46. He made this statement in response to those who were selling animals and changing money in the Temple.

In my lifetime, the church has done a pretty good job of preventing the sale of animals and banking transactions from taking place on church grounds. On the surface, we have followed the teaching of Jesus in this regard.

As I reflect on this statement, I have an increasing level of discomfort about how well we’ve done in following the principle behind the statement.

What are robbers? There are two aspects of a robber that come to mind. The first is that he is not concerned about what is right and what is wrong. The robber is willing to take what is not his.

The second is that he is acting on his own behalf and not concerned about the welfare of others. The robber satisfies his own needs at the expense of another.

We don’t sell animals and we don’t cheat people by making them exchange their money. That’s good, but there are other ways we can emulate the people condemned by Jesus. We can keep the letter of the law while violating the principle behind it.

The principle is that we are to be about our Father’s business which is that of reconciling a hurting world with the loving Father. We are to be about His business and not our own. But, too often on a Sunday morning, our involvement is all about what is good for us and not what is pleasing to God and beneficial to others. If we do not come to the church meeting with the right motivation, we can then become like the robber.

We become like the robbers when we:

  1. Are More concerned about attendance than spiritual growth
  2. Are more concerned about appearing holy than being holy
  3. Are manipulating people into giving money rather than depending upon God
  4. Are more concerned about the buildings and the campus than the people, the true church
  5. Are more concerned about being served than serving
  6. Are more concerned about our reputation than God’s
  7. Misrepresent God to the people who need him most, causing them to walk away feeling condemned

So, instead of smugly reading this passage and patting ourselves on the back for not allowing commerce to take place on church grounds on Sunday, let’s look at the real business that we are to be about.

The ancient Israelites missed the point of Temple worship and if we are honest, we sometimes struggle to stay on track. We live in a culture that encourages us to live for self first.

We need to allow God to show us where this selfishness has corrupted our worship and practice. The proper response then is to repent and allow God to bring change.

Because of wrong belief and practice, we’ve abandoned a lot of spiritual territory to the Enemy. It’s time to begin the battle to take it back . . . before it’s too late.

If it is spoiled, throw it out

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SpoiledThis evening I read 1 Kings 9 where God answers Solomon’s prayer of dedication of the Temple. In 1 Kings 9:8 God tells Solomon that the Temple will become a heap of ruins if Israel and her kings go after other gods and serve them.

The thought struck me this evening that the Temple, as opulent as it was, only had value if it helped the Israelites focus on their God. The Temple was a symbol to remind the nation of the God they were to serve and worship.

Contrary to what the Israelites may have thought, God did not value the building, he valued the response that the Temple was supposed to elicit in the worshippers. God wanted their hearts fully tuned to himself. When the Israelites no longer were affected by the Temple in this way, the Temple had to go. At best it then became a distraction. At worst, it gave a veneer of legitimacy to their spiritual misdeeds.

In the same way, we in the Church, have struggled to throw out the practices that no longer bring us closer to God. We cling to types of music, styles of dress, hair styles, programs and even Bible translations as though we loose a piece of God if we let these things go. I doubt that God cares about the style of music or dress with which we approach him; he wants our hearts, and he wants them in their entirety.

In business there is a proverb, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” When our methods and traditions no longer deepen our relationship with God and no longer assist us in our commission to make disciples, then they should be tossed. To keep repeating the same action and expecting a different result is insane. Let us choose sanity.

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