Money and Religion: do they Mix?

The idea of Jesus ever becoming angry is one that many people feel uncomfortable about. And yet early on in his public work we are told of this incident:

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

A bit of background might help us understand this strange story:

  • The Passover was a week-long annual festival held to commemorate the event, centuries earlier, when the Jewish people came out of slavery in the land of Egypt. (The event is the theme of the films The Prince of Egypt and Exodus: Gods and Kings).
  • During Passover lambs were slaughtered and sacrificed in the temple and family groups ate a ritual meal together in their homes or elsewhere.
  • The Jerusalem temple was arranged in a series of concentric rectangular courtyards. The outer courts were publicly accessible by Jews and Gentiles; access to the inner courts was more restricted.
  • Jews around the world were required to pay a donation of half a shekel a year towards the maintenance of the Jerusalem temple. In the time of Jesus, this payment was typically made in Passover week when Jews from around the world would be present for the festival. 
The presence of the money changers in the temple appears to have arisen because of the need for Jews from different countries and provinces of the Roman empire to change their money into authorised shekels. Some foreign coins were minted with the images of Greek or Roman gods or goddesses and were therefore regarded as unacceptable for the payment of the temple levy.   

Despite the fact that the money changers were offering a useful business service, Jesus drove them out of the temple courts, overturning their tables in the process. Jesus was clearly annoyed that commercial interests were encroaching onto the temple, which is called "a house of prayer for all nations" elsewhere in the bible.

As they thought about this incident later on, the followers of Jesus remembered a passage from their bible written centuries earlier by David, one of Israel's great kings. The passage said: "zeal for your house will consume me." Interestingly, when David wrote that verse, the temple had not yet been built in Jerusalem; it was started by his son Solomon after David's death. So there is a hint even at the time of writing that God's house meant something bigger than a physical building. Jesus develops this idea later on in his teaching as he explains that knowing God is about faith and reality not architecture and geography.

Zeal is a burning passion for someone or something. Jesus was zealous for God's house - the temple. The idea that this place where people could encounter God in prayer should be turned into a market was deeply offensive to him. He was on fire about the issue!

We live in an age where almost everything is being commodified.  Time, health services, education, public spaces and even fresh air and water are increasingly talked about in monetary terms. What is their market value?

Against this culture, Jesus insists that there is a dimension of life that cannot be thought of in financial terms. The knowledge of God is not a financial product to be bought or sold. Those who think it is risk the anger of the Son of God.



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