Wednesday, October 1, 2014

The right choice of noise...

Matthew 21:12-17 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. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” 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 babiesyou have prepared praise’?” And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there. When Jesus arrived at the Temple, it was crowded and chaotic - not a place conducive to worship. Most of the noise was coming from the Court of the Gentiles, where a money exchange for temple coins at high exchange rates, and the sale of sacrificial animals at exhorbatant prices, were competing with one another, and for space - keeping those who needed God most away. Jesus objected to such noise. The Pharisees, on the other hand objected to the noise due to Jesus - the praising of the healed, and the recognition by the children that He was the Messiah. Jesus' questions were simple and piercing: Which kind of noise pleases God? Which kind of noise does His Word promote and prohibit? What kind of noise are you making in God's house?

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