House of merchandise

What's to be learned from the passage in the OP?

 

Orb

Maybe it was what they were selling that upset Jesus, if you notice these were used for sacrifices.

 

(1) If you are a Jew, and the Temple is rebuilt, don't sell things on the grounds.
(2) Jesus is a man's Man, and no wimp. He defended His Father's house from intruders using violence. (So much for the modern idea that all violence is wrong.)
(3) "Provide things honest in the sight of all men" (Rom. 12:17). So be honest in business.

 

Righteous anger (without hatred) is never wrong.

Be ye angry and sin not; and let not the sun go down on your wrath.

 

Amen and amen! :thumbs:

 

I was thinking more along the lines of how we have turned our temples into dens of thieves. What is to be learned from the passage?

 

I shared what I've learned from the passage. Please share what you've learned.

 

A church is a place of worship. We go there to worship together and learn. Now the question seems to be, is it ok to use this to sell to people. I say it's taking advantage. Which is wrong. if our focus is to be on the Lord in worship and learning His word in our churches is it alright for someone to sell there? No.

 

We have allowed preachers to put up a book table. I always make the announcement that we are not selling the book, we are merely trading them for money. :laugh:

I have issues with a church trying to make money off the sale of books, candy etc. I also think it's wrong for the church to raise their budget through fund raisers.

But we have done fund raisers on church property to get kids to camp. I'm not sure that this is what Jesus is being angry about.

 

After chasing out the moneychangers and overturning their tables, the disciples remembered what was spoken of by the psalmist in Psalm 69...

"The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up."

Should not the Child of God have such a zeal for the place of worship that he or she treat it as holy and set apart for the Lord? Should it not be considered a house of prayer as Christ said the House of God is to be?

Selling merchandise was never meant to be in the place of worship.

 

I sell books at cost in the MC. They are books I can get at a discount because I order thousands of dollars of books a year or because I have sources that others aren't privy to. I also sell donated books that we already have copies of on the shelves or are too old or have some other problem with them. I turn around and buy other things for the MC with those monies. We put out outdated/weeded materials and then put the money back into buying new things for the MC.

We also sell materials by the church staff, but that money is reinvested back into the same materials to sell. We do the same thing for discipleship or women's Bible studies. Our goal is to be helpful to our patrons.

 

SFIC and DonnA, forgive me for pointing it out, but you are both making the same mistake. The church house is not a "place of worship" any more than someone's home is or a store is. It has no similarity whatsoever to the Jewish temple. In fact, the "church building" doesn't even appear in the NT, where churches (people, not buildings) met in houses.

The Bible nowhere, ever, in no way says that we are to have "houses of worship." That is where the Catholics go wrong with their grand cathedrals built on the backs of the poor people. And the Sunday morning service is not a "worship service." That occurs nowhere in the Bible. It is for fellowship, mutual encouragement (Heb. 10:25) and for the pastors and other preachers to teach and encourage the people to serve God (Eph. 4:11-12).

No, in the NT our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and worship is something we should do all day every day everywhere, not just in some building. It is unbiblical formalism to make the church building a "place of worship" as the temple was. Please rethink your position. It is not supported by Scripture.

 

Triple Amen!!!:thumbs:

 

You may not worship in your church, or any church, but we do in ours.

 

Are church members, who go to church to worship God now considered patrons?
Sad.

 

Donna, I was speaking specifically about the Media Center and the people who enter it. My post was about the Media Center and it's operations. The people who check books out of the MC are called patrons. I was not talking about church members in general. Our church has 10,000 members and a day school. Members of teh media center have always been called patrons. Church members are not automatically Media Center members.

 

Church members are not patrons, they are worshippers. If church members boil down to being patrons then theres a problem.

 

Since when is this what church memebrs are called?