The moneychangers
What do you expect to see in a church? Imagine if you went into your local church to worship and found it had been turned into a cattle market!
That’s what Jesus found when he went to the temple in Jerusalem. He chased away the traders and turned over the tables of the moneychangers.
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People were buying and selling lambs, doves and cattle. They would bring their own jars and bottles to buy oil, vinegar or wine. Many people had travelled to Jerusalem for the Passover. They used moneychangers to change their money into the local currency. The moneychangers would charge for this service. The temple area had become a place to make money instead of a place of worship to God.
What did Jesus teach about money?
He said it was harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. He said you should not focus on money, but on God.
One day Jesus watched as a poor widow put two small coins into the temple treasury. He said ‘I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on.’
The temple in Jerusalem was where the Jewish people worshipped. When Jesus entered the temple area he found that the people had turned it into a market-place instead of a place of worship.
The Bible teaches that it is more important to search for God than for wealth.
The Bible says
Mark 11:15-18
On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts.
And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.'”
The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.