Mark 11:15-26 Church turnover

Here we have Jesus coming back to the temple, prepared to meet what was there.   Remember he visited the temple back in vs. 11.    But why was Jesus so mad that he turned up the tables of the marketeers in the temple?

Well, the answers are in his words, that the temple was supposed to be "called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have turned it into a den of thieves." (17)   The place where the market was being held was may of been a place where the 'non-Jews' where allowed to enter and pray.  By OT standards, that was the only place they could.    Jesus also uses the term thieves ... which suggests that the problem could of also lay with the moneychangers themselves.

Using counter weights and charging ridiculous amounts of money (aka. taking some on the side) for selling items so that people could continue their sacrifice.  If the merchants were 'tipping the scales' and taking the money, there's probably a good chance that some of the profits were going to Priests as well.   Jesus was confronting a corrupt Church that had lost its way.   The Chief priests were planning to kill Jesus over this, but the people were 'amazed' at his teaching (vs 18).   The people were no longer under ignorance, but Jesus opened up their minds with his teaching from scripture.

Moving on we have the disciples finding the previously cursed fig tree (yesterday's lesson), and they were amazed that it died.    Then Jesus says to them that if you have faith enough, you can move mountains.   People latch on to this, and throughout church history had accused people who were not healed to 'not have enough faith'.   But read the whole passage.....vs. 24-25 "I tell you, you can pray for anything and if you believe that you've received it, it will be yours.   But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins too."    The disciples were so amazed about the fig tree, that Jesus is like, 'sure that's cool, you can do more if you have faith enough ... but FIRST .... lets talk about forgiveness."  

Jesus reaffirms that our relationship with God comes first, before self.   We need to forgive those we have a grudge against first, so that God will forgive us.  That's the kicker isn't it?   It also infers that our relationship with others affects our relationship with God.   THAT is a deep thing to reflect on isn't it.