Zeal for your House

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Week 20 | Sections 30, 31

This week while we read about Jesus cleansing the temple, we are challenged to examine ourselves, our traditions and the busyness and commerce we’ve allowed and perhaps even brought into our local church.

Being a disciple is all about having a relationship with God, not programs and products. What have we busied ourselves with that in truth, undermines the very foundations of our faith?

Scripture:
Section 30 | John 20:12
12 After this,¹ he went down to Capernaum,² he, and his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they stayed there a few days.

Section 31 | John 2:13-22
13 The Passover³ of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.⁴ 14 He found in the temple those who sold⁵ oxen, sheep, and doves, and the changers of money sitting. 15 He made a whip of cords, and threw all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and he poured out⁶ the changers’ money and overthrew their tables.⁷ 16 To those who sold the doves, he said, “Take these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s⁸ house a marketplace!”17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will eat me up.”⁹¯¹⁰ 18 The Jews¹¹ therefore answered him, “What sign do you show us, seeing that you do these things?”¹² 19 Jesus answered them,“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”¹³  20 The Jews therefore said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple! Will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he spoke of the temple of his body.¹⁴This is the second time that Jesus speaks of his resurrection.  22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this, and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

Group Dialog:

1. What needs to be cleansed out (again) of our life?
2. What traditions need to be cleansed from the practice of our congregation.
3. How would you rank your zeal? Allegiance to Jesus? Your identity known to others as one of Jesus’ disciples?
4. What revelations have you had that caused a radical life change?
5. What ways have you been closed off to the truth, and the revelation of God?
6. What is it you want to experience when you gather as the church?
7. What does it mean to be the church?

Learning Objectives:

Applying the truth we know, let the seed of truth and the Gospel grow in you, rid our lives of false idols, be the church, trust in the power of the risen Lord, divine authority

Study Notes:

1. This refers to the Section 29, John 2:1-11 when Jesus performed his first miracle at the wedding in Cana
2. It was a two day journey from travel from Cana to Capernaum.
3. The month of Nissan 3790, April 30AD. This is the first of four Passover celebrations which Jesus observed during his public ministry as recorded in the Gospels. Passover is an annual celebration in remembrance of how the Hebrews were spared from the final plague in Egypt (death of the first born) because the marked their door posts with the blood of a sacrificial lamb. The angel of death passed over each house so marked. The weather might have been about 70º Fahrenheit
4. the journey from Capernaum to Jerusalem  is about 120 miles (35 hours 3-days). Based on the events so far we calculate that its been about nine weeks since his baptism
5. The selling of the the sacrificial animals in the temple is what upset Jesus. It was a place of reverence and worship, but there was most likely exploitation of the people who needed to buy their sacrifice to meet the obligation of the law. These were being sold in the court of the gentiles, I wonder if Jesus was also upset that the this was the face of faith to the gentiles – a bad witness and testimony. The court of the gentiles was the closest place that gentiles could come to the temple. Therefor e the merchants and the buyers took up space of those gentile who would want to come close to God.
6. drove out
7. This is the fist time Jesus threw over the tables. The second time is about 2 years later in Section 129b, Mt 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-18; Lk 19:45-48
8. Jesus is identifying himself as the Son of God, cf Jesus Baptism
9. Ps 69
10. There are currently 5 disciples Phillip, Simon Peter, Andrew, Nathanael, John. These disciples were forming an allegiance to Jesus and their identity was being enmeshed with his very mission. This is an essential lesson in Phase 2 of discipleship.
11. probably the Pharisees
12. Once again they ask for a sign. He has given enough signs already. William Temple said, “same inquiry” – that is and who gives you the right to ask? The soul who hears God’s divine command responds without question.
13. See how he appeals to his own power “I will raise it”. They thought he was speaking of the earthly temple, but he was foretelling is own crucifixion and resurrection.