Devotional Sharing, Submitted by Susanna Lee, Gracepoint Davis

Matthew 21:12-17

What is so offensive and tragic about what was happening in the temple?  The temple was to be a place of worship and prayer where God is acknowledged and honored.  It should have been a place where people come to meet God, a place where they confess their sins in prayer and receive cleansing for their sins.  Yet, the temple was turned into a market, a place for personal gain.  What is so offensive and tragic is that the temple became just like any place in the world where transactions are made for personal profit even at the expense of robbing someone.  In this passage, God is robbed of His rightful position to be worshiped, and the people are robbed of the priceless opportunity to come and worship God and get right before God.  The temple lost its purpose for existence.  And if the temple loses its purpose, its calling, there is nothing else in this world that can replace it.  Thus, the very provision that God made for sinners to get right with God is violated.

How does Jesus’ healing of the blind and lame contrast with what was happening in the temple? We need to pause here a little bit and savor what is going on.  “The blind and the lame” came to Jesus at the temple, and Jesus healed them!  Clearly God is at work.  Yet, Jesus is performing this miracle in the midst of chaos and most awful corruption.

Consider the fact that what Jesus found fundamentally offensive, the temple authorities found perfectly okay.  Who has the authority to establish the definition of what is appropriate in my life? It is quite mind-boggling how the temple authorities found the turning of the temple into a marketplace, a place of robbery, perfectly okay or acceptable while being indignant at Jesus for healing the blind and the lame.  Such discrepancy took place because these temple authorities adhered to their standards and practices as the final authority to establish the definition of what is appropriate or not.  They had failed to realize how much they had digressed from God’s purpose for a temple.  It degenerated to the point that there was no difference between God’s temple and a world’s marketplace.

Are there ways in which I have failed to take into consideration God’s standards in allowing worldly values and practices be the norm in my life?  Today’s temple is my heart, the dwelling place of God.  It ought to be a place where the “indwelling Christ controls all” as my Lord and Savior.  God’s standards, values, and practices are always holy, radically different from this world.  There is zero tolerance for sin.  And it always demands self-denial, because it is always based on love–love for God and love for others.   Worldly values and practices always place the self at the center and demands God and others to fit around what is convenient for me and what my self-centered desires want.  Everywhere around us flaunts such ideal, especially the media.  It brainwashes us to think that this is the “norm” when in truth it is a grotesque distortion of God’s standards and design for His creations.

I was shocked to read today’s Breakpoint commentary by Chuck Colson.  A pastor named Dale Kuehne took some college students to work in a farming village in Costa Rica–a poor village that lacked electricity and running water.  The locals used their generator, once a week, to watch a raunchy American television program–Beverly Hills 90210.  To his shock, Kuehne witnessed the village teenagers mimicking the behavior of the characters in the show.  But what floored him was that the village men thought something was wrong with the women who’d come on the trip.  They actually asked, “Why don’t they want to have sex?”  “We thought all American women want to have sex.”  This might be an extreme example, but isn’t this the very message the media are giving to this generation as the “norm” when our bodies are created to be temples of God.

Although I do not embody values of the mass media, that doesn’t mean that I am always embodying God’s standards and values.  Before I became a Christian, I was like a sponge soaking in all that the world had to say about what is “normal,” especially through fashion magazines and the entertainment industry.  I need to realize that these wrong standards and values have seeped into my heart and my value system, and that each day as a Christian I must be on guard and purposely live my life according to what God says in the Scripture rather than what others are doing and what others are calling the “norm” and “appropriate.”

I think this gets most difficult when professing Christians calls a secular standard or value a “norm” even though it goes against God’s principles.

In what ways can the church today turn into a marketplace? The church today can turn into a marketplace when seeking a relationship with God is usurped by seeking of personal profit.  The seeking of personal profit  comes in all shapes and forms, sometimes  subtly and sometimes blatantly:

o   A place to find my future spouse

o   A place to get friends to alleviate loneliness.

o   A place to network for business/career opportunities

o   A place for my social needs to be met

o   A place for my family to be serviced–a place where my kids are properly taken care of and my marriage will be taken care of

o   A place to be a “somebody”; we can give up the arena from the world but replace the worldly arena in the church arena, in the spiritual arena.

o   A place to climb up the ranks to get people’s respect and approval; our worldly ambition can be disguised under spiritual ambition.

How God’s heart must ache to see confessing Christians turn His house of prayers into a den of robbers by turning away from the original design and intent of the temple and demanding our wants to be serviced.  If the church becomes a place where people’s wants and demands are serviced, we lose our calling to reach the lost. And if believers treat other believers with the worldly standard of “I’ll give you that only if you give this in return,” then we become no different than a marketplace where transactions are done for the purpose of personal profit.  God’s calling for each believer as a temple of God is demonstrated in the life of Jesus in 1 Peter 2:21, 21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.”  Each believer is called to live a life of suffering for the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of others getting right with God without demanding, “What’s in it for me?”  As soon as I seek “What’s in it for me,” I’m on the pathway of turning God’s church into a marketplace.

Matthew 21:1-11

“The crowds shout out ‘Hosanna,’ which is the transliteration of the Hebrew expression that means ‘O save’ (cf. 2 Sam. 14:4; 2 Kings 6:26)… They further cry out to Jesus as ‘Son of David’ (21:9).  Linked with Hosanna, the title ‘Son of David’ is unmistakably messianic.  The crowd acknowledges what Jesus has already stated in his fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9: He is the Davidic Messiah…on whom they call to save them out of their oppression.”[1]

• Reflect on the ways in which “Hosanna” captures the deepest cry of the human heart.  To whom can this cry be directed?
• What do I wish God to save me from?  How does what I wish God to save me from compare to the message of the Gospel?

Matthew 21:23-27

“ ‘John’s baptism’ (v. 25) is a way of referring to the Baptist’s entire ministry …Jesus asks whether that ministry was from heaven or from men. … ”[2]

“They cannot alienate the people by saying that John’s highly popular prophetic ministry was not from God. They fear that the people may turn against them and cause an uprising (21:26), which would jeopardize the Roman support of their leadership. But neither can they endorse the very prophet who had condemned them for not repenting (cf.3: 7-10)…These religious leaders recognize the dilemma Jesus has put them in, so they refuse to answer. That refusal shows their dishonesty, and they must accept their culpability.”[3]

• Notice that the priests and elders confidently came to challenge Jesus, only to be confronted with a question that invites them to take a stance on the truth, which would have far-reaching consequences in their lives.  Think of a time when I felt similarly confronted with a truth or a question that presented a “fork in the road.”  How did I respond?
• What pragmatic considerations do the priests and elders consider before giving their answer to Jesus?  What does this show about their view and attitude toward truth?
• What fears, and other pragmatic considerations, am I allowing to intrude upon my consideration and response to who Jesus is, and what authority he will have in my life?
• In what ways am I similar to the priests and elders who replied, “I don’t know,” in order to avoid the concrete demands made by the truth?

Matthew 21:33-42

“Many absentee landowners were notorious for their harsh treatment of their tenants. Here, the scene is reversed, and the landowner’s servants are abused when they come to collect a portion of the harvest. The landowner continues to send servants to collect what is rightfully his, but each is treated the same way (22:36). The treatment of these ‘servants’ calls to mind the same fate that befell God’s prophets throughout Old Testament history (e.g., 1 Kings 18:4; Jer. 20:1 – 2). Jesus will soon hold the teachers of the law and Pharisees culpable for the ill fate of the prophets and wise men sent to Israel (cf. Matt. 23:34).” [4]

• Reflect on the description of what the landowner did in preparing the vineyard before renting it out to the tenant farmers.  In what way is this true of my life?
• What is absurd about the tenants’ response to the landowner’s request? What basic truths did the tenants disregard in pursuing their course?
• In what ways have I been like the tenants in challenging God’s rightful authority over my life?

Additional Questions:

Matthew 21:1-6

“The term ‘Lord’ (kyrios) can designee one’s master or one’s deity.  It is used to refer to the master of the slave in 10:24, but also to God as Lord of the harvest (9:38), Lord of the vineyard (20:8), Lord of heaven and earth (11:20, 25), and often of Jesus as the Messiah (Acts 10:36).  It is difficult to say what either the disciples or anyone else would have understood kyrios to meet in this context, but Jesus plainly intends it to refer to himself has the one who sovereignly superintends these events.  At this climatic time of his earthly ministry, Jesus reveals himself with increasing clarity.”[5]

• What is the significance of the fact that Jesus gave such specific instructions to the disciples in fulfillment of the prophecy?
• How might the disciples have felt as they obeyed Jesus’ seemingly strange instructions and then found everything as Jesus had said?
• What perspective do these verses give me on the seemingly “illogical” or counter-intuitive commands of God that I am called to obey?
• Have there been times when God’s commands to me seemed to not make sense?  What has been my response to them?

Matthew 21:12-17

• What is so offensive and tragic about what was happening in the temple?
• How does Jesus’ healing of the blind and lame contrast with what was happening in the temple?
• Consider the fact that what Jesus found fundamentally offensive, the temple authorities found perfectly okay.  Who has the authority to establish the definition of what is appropriate in my life?
• Are there ways in which I have failed to take into consideration God’s standards in allowing worldly values and practices be the norm in my life?
• In what ways can the church today turn into a marketplace?

Matthew 21:18-19

“This cursing of the barren fig-tree represents the state of hypocrites in general; and so it teaches us that the fruit of fig-trees may justly be expected from those that have the leaves. Christ looks for the power of religion from those that make profession of it; …

A false and hypocritical profession commonly withers in this world, and it is the effect of Christ’s curse; the fig-tree that had no fruit, soon lost its leaves. Hypocrites may look plausible for a time, but, having no principle, no root in themselves, their profession will soon come to nothing.”[6]

• Meditate on the description, “nothing on it except leaves.”  What kind of church and what kind of Christian would be aptly described as having “nothing on it except leaves”?
• What does fruit represent?
• How fruitful am I?

Matthew 21:28-32

“The shock value of Jesus’ statement can only be appreciated when the low esteem in which tax collectors (see on 5:46) were held, not to mention prostitutes, is taken into account… But Jesus is saying that the scum of society, though it says no to God, repents, performs the Father’s will, and enters the kingdom, whereas the religious authorities loudly say yes to God but never do what he says, and therefore they fail to enter.”[7]

“The key to the correct understanding of this parable is that it is not really praising anyone. It is setting before us a picture of two very imperfect sets of people, of whom one set were none the less better than the other. Neither son in the story was the kind of son to bring full joy to his father. Both were unsatisfactory; but the one who in the end obeyed was incalculably better than the other…this parable teaches us that promises can never take the place of performance, and fine words are never a substitute for fine deeds.”[8]

• Reflect on what this parable says about obedience—actual, physical carrying out of God’s commands.
• In what areas of my life, have I been like the first son – making empty promises, but not following through in obedience?
• What dire warning is here for me regarding the consequences of developing such a separation between my words and obedience, given whom this parable is directed at?

Matthew 21:43-46

• Reflect on the words in v. 43: “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.”
• What is so tragic and fearful about the response of the chief priests and the Pharisees?

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[1] Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004) 687.

[2] Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, NIV Application Commentary Series DVD (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004)

[3] Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), pp.695-696.

[4] Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, NIV Application Commentary Series DVD (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004).

[5] Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004) 686.

[6] Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible.  http://www.ccel.org/h/henry/mhc2/MHC00000.HTM

[7] Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, NIV Application Commentary Series DVD (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004)

[8] William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew Volume 2, The Daily Study Bible Series (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1975) pp.259-360