John 2:15-16

15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!”

In our culture, good Christians get mad if someone says a bad word or does something evil on television, yet you don’t see too many of us getting upset over TV preachers who are obviously only out to make a buck in the name of God. We threaten boycotts if gays are presented as less than evil, but who has threatened a boycott over some preacher offering a prayer cloth for $9.95 that he says will work miracles?

Which defames the name of God more? A non-believer acting like a non-believer, or someone using the name of God to rip people off?

It would seem from the above text, that Jesus thought it was worse for religious people to make ill-gotten gain from the gospel than it was for a sinner to sin

This was the first Passover of Jesus’ ministry. At the Passover Jews came from throughout the empire to the temple to worship and to offer sacrifices.

It does make sense that there would be people selling the animals for sacrifice. If someone had to walk 20 miles to Jerusalem, it might have been a lot more convenient to buy the animal there than to carry one the whole distance. They were changing money because everyone had to pay the half-shekel temple tax in Jewish money. People were coming from everywhere, so they had to get their money exchanged.

The selling of the animals and changing money in itself was not the problem. It was offering a service that people needed. Had this been happening outside of the temple there might not have been a problem at all.

There were two main problems with this system. The animals presented for sacrifice had to pass inspection. Those making the inspections were the same people that were selling the animals. This was corruption waiting to happen. The other problem was, that the sellers and money changers were taking up the whole temple court area. This was the area that was set aside for gentiles, and the money changers were crowding them out.

Somewhere else Jesus criticized them for making it difficult for those that wanted to enter the kingdom of God to do so. This was just one example of how that happened.

The scriptures are not saying business is evil, or even that making a profit off business is wrong. The thing that upset Jesus was that they were turning what should have been worship into nothing more than a commercial venture.

The temple itself was a for-runner of Christ. This was one of the first acts of his public ministry. He perhaps instigated this event to get the attention of the Jewish leadership.

He was drawing a line in the sand so to speak. From this point on there would be a tension between Jesus and the religious authorities of the day.

The Jews rightly questioned his authority, asking what signs he would use to show his authority to do what he had done. This theme will continue throughout the book of John. The tension between unbelief and belief will grow until the crucifixion and resurrection.

That tension is still with us.