"All Truth is God's Truth"

All lies are the devil's lies.

Pigeons and Robbers

Mark 11:15-19 (ESV) 

¹⁵And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. ¹⁶ And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. ¹⁷ And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” ¹⁸ And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. ¹⁹And when evening came they went out of the city.

It's always shocking to discover that you've been interpreting a certain passage of scripture incorrectly your entire life. I recently had that happen as I was preparing a Bible study on Mark 11 for my youth group. In the passage in question, Jesus makes his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the next morning comes to visit the temple. He sees the temple activities and starts knocking over tables and making a general mess of things.

This passage naturally evokes the question of Jesus's purposes and intentions. What do his actions mean? Why does he do this? The standard answer, which I've heard my entire life, asserts that he is upset because the people are conducting business inside the temple courts. My own dear father first gave me this interpretation when I wanted to sell some fundraising items to church members after the service. "Remember what Jesus did when they were selling in the temple?" At first glance, this interpretation seems quite plausible.  After all, Jesus calls the temple a "house of prayer," not a place of business. Indeed, one of my initial discussion questions for my students was, "What does this passage have to say about having a coffee shop or bookstore inside a church?"

However, I think this interpretation suffers from a number of problems. First, the people needed to perform the money changing transaction. Exodus 30:13-14 states that every Jewish male has to pay a temple tax. If Roman money pictured Roman Caesars, it would be considered profane to pay the sacred tax with such currency. So the people needed to exchange their Roman money for Jewish money before they could worship God as he himself required.

Second, and similarly, the people needed to purchase animals for their sacrifices. If one could not afford to give the prescribed sheep, he could purchase turtledoves or pigeons instead (Lev. 5:7). Jesus own parents had to take advantage of that legal concession (Lk. 2:24). The sale of pigeons was vital for the operations of the temple system. Why would Jesus be trying to stop the pious from worshiping God as the law commanded?

In light of these problems, the standard view  is sometimes nuanced with the assertion that the salesmen are taking advantage of the poor. The money changers and pigeon traders are making an inordinate profit, essentially stealing from God's people. This interpretation also makes sense at first: Jesus calls the temple a "den of robbers."

Again, this slightly more nuanced view suffers from two problems, the first of which is that Jesus drove out "those who bought" (Mk. 11:15). Why would he forcibly remove the innocent people trying to follow the law to the best of their ability?

Second, Mark records that the people were astonished, and specifically astonished at his teaching. The people are often astonished in the gospels, and it invariably follows Jesus saying or doing something miraculous or shocking. In this case, they were not astonished specifically by what he did, but by what he taught. If his "teaching" was simply that the merchants were abusing the system to their own advantage, the reaction would be a polite disinterest: it is common knowledge. If they really were being oppressed by the greedy money-changers, would they not be rejoicing or celebrating?

I think Jesus is doing something much deeper here than merely liberating the people from financial oppression. He is making a greater point about the temporary and fulfilled purpose of the temple and the kingdom he has come to inaugurate.*

Jesus interprets his own actions inside the temple by alluding to two Old Testament passages: one from Isaiah 56, the other from Jeremiah 7. I've reproduced Isaiah 56:3a, 6-8 below:

          3  Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say,

      “The LORD will surely separate me from his people”;

…….

     6 “And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,

      to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD,

      and to be his servants,

                  everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,

      and holds fast my covenant—

            7      these I will bring to my holy mountain,

      and make them joyful in my house of prayer;

                  their burnt offerings and their sacrifices

      will be accepted on my altar;

                  for my house shall be called a house of prayer

      for all peoples.”

            8      The Lord GOD,

      who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,

                  “I will gather yet others to him

      besides those already gathered.”

The Lord proclaims through Isaiah that there will be a time when the foreigners, the gentiles, would no longer be separated from him and his people (v. 3).  Relationship with God is open to all who follow his law, who keep the terms of his covenant. God declares to gather into Israel even those who are not part of Israel (v. 8)

Jesus's specific quotation from verse 7 indicates that he is upset that the temple is a form of exclusion. Contra the standard interpretation, he is not so much reminding the people that the temple is for prayer, but that it is for all people. By law, only Jews could enter and worship in the temple proper. In the coming Kingdom of God, this exclusion is no longer how God operates with his people. The temple, as a bastion of ethnic Jewish pride, must go.

Jesus's second allusion, "den of robbers," is to Jeremiah 7:

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the LORD. 3 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. 4 Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’

5 “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, 6 if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.

8 “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? 11 Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the LORD. 12 Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. 13 And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, 14 therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim.

In this passage, certain men of Judah do wicked deeds and then trust in the deceptive thought that being in the temple of the Lord will save them from judgment. Repeating the mantra, "the Temple of the LORD" will not rescue them from divine justice. The Lord has seen it.

What then is a den of robbers? In verse 10, Jeremiah rebukes those men for doing many "abominations" and breaking pretty much every one of the Ten Commandments. In 11-14, he's basically saying, "you've done all this wickedness, and now you try to hide out in my temple, turning it into a den of robbers? It doesn’t matter. I have seen what you've done. And I will destroy it just like I destroyed Shiloh."

In Jeremiah, the den of robbers is not the place where the robbers do their robbing. It is the place where the robbers hide out from justice: it is a hideout. Jesus imports this context into his actions. The scribes, chief priests, and Pharisees have the faulty thought that they can do whatever they want, then offer the sacrifices according to the Law of Moses and everything will be alright. As Dr. David E. Garland put it, "The leaders of the people think that they can rob widows' houses and then perform the prescribed sacrifices according to the prescribed patterns at the prescribed times in the prescribed purity in the prescribed sacred space and then be safe and secure from all alarms. They are wrong"*

So what exactly is Jesus advocating? Jesus is following in a long history of prophets symbolically acting out their message, much like Jeremiah (see Jer. 27) and Ezekiel (see Ezk. 3) did quite often. He is proclaiming nothing shorter than the end of the temple system, the end of the sinner's hideout, as Jeremiah proclaimed in Jer. 7:14. The temple and its sacrifices were meant as a temporary means of worship and pointed to a greater reality. Jesus himself is that greater reality, and therefore predicts that the temple will be brought to an end. This is the teaching which astonished the people and led to his crucifixion (Mk. 11:18). If Jesus simply meant clean the temple, as the standard interpretation asserts, his actions would have disrupted their activities for what, an hour? Jesus is instead teaching a greater reality: the full destruction of the temple, which would come some 30 years later in 70AD.

This interpretation is confirmed by comparing it to the framing story (Mk. 11:12-14, 20-25) of Jesus cursing the fig tree, which was a common OT image for Israel (Jer. 8:13; Hosea 9:10, 16; Micah 7:1). From a distance, the tree appeared to have fruit. When Jesus saw its barrenness, he cursed it, and it withered into nothing. From a distance, the temple seemed to be full of worship, but like the fig tree, it was barren in the true fruit of faith and piety. The sacrifices are being offered, yes, but the Lord had long declared that he did not delight in sacrifices alone, but the heart of faith and obedience. (Ps. 51:16-17, 1 Sam. 15:22). As a result, Jesus effectively cursed it, and it would soon wither away into nothing. What happened to the fig tree would soon happen to the temple.

Jesus himself brings this out when he answers John's question about the fig tree (Mk. 11:22-25). He says simply, "Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. (Mk. 11:22-23, emphasis mine). To which mountain does he refer? We often spiritualize this saying, as if the mountain is some obstacle in our lives, and if we just believe hard enough it will be removed. But Jesus is specifically referring to the Temple Mount. Indeed, Isaiah 56:7, which Jesus cited earlier, parallels the Lord's "holy mountain" with his "house of prayer."

If one believes that the temple is thrown into the sea for him, that it is not the way to salvation, that it has no bearing on his relationship with God, then it will be symbolically done for him. Justification and salvation come to us through faith. Jesus further relates forgiveness of others to forgiveness from God. "Forgive, … so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses." What's striking is that this forgiveness does not come through the temple or its priesthood. It comes directly to a person, through faith.

So the question is not about what this story has to say about bookstores in churches. The pressing question is what does this passage say to those of us who trust in our church attendance, our good works, our tithing, or our daily bible study? Where is your den? Where do you try to hide from the justice of God? Indeed, as Jeremiah declares, The Lord has seen it, and it will be destroyed. But Jesus proclaims the gospel in response to those chilling words. Mercy and justice meet at the cross, where Jesus takes on our burden and suffers the consequence for our sin. Trust not in your own piety, but in Christ, God's appointed savior.

* I found this interpretation in the NIV Application Commentary by David E. Garland. 

Finding the Will of God in 3 Easy Steps

1. Do what God has commanded in scripture.
2. Don't do what God has prohibited in scripture.
3. Then, do whatever you want.