Luke 19:45-48

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Day Five in Steps to the Cross: Luke 19:45-48

 45 Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling.

 46 "It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be a house of prayer'[a]; but you have made it 'a den of robbers.'[b]"

 47 Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him. 48 Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his words.

Footnotes:

 a. Luke 19:46 Isaiah 56:7

 b. Luke 19:46 Jer. 7:11

Psalm 122--A Journey

Do you have a favorite journey? Is there a car ride that brings back memories—like an annual drive to a family member’s home to celebrate Christmas?

Psalm 122 is about a journey. This is a psalm about how the Jews would journey three times a year to Jerusalem for a feast. They rejoiced because they were going to the Temple, the place where God dwelled. And that made it worth all of that effort. And since the Temple was special, so was its city because it was the city of the Temple. The presence of God at the Temple not only made the Temple special, but made the city around it important. So, the psalm calls the people of God to pray for Jerusalem and to seek its peace.

Christmas is all about a journey also. However Christmas is not about travelers journeying to the place of God. Rather, Christmas is the story about God leaving his place in heaven and coming to where we dwell. The presence of the Temple represented God’s intention to be near his people in their world. The arrival of Jesus superseded the old Temple in order to house the presence of God so that God may be close to all people throughout the entire world. Now that Jesus has come, each person who follows Jesus is now a Temple that houses the presence of Jesus’ own Holy Spirit. Not only that, but together, the disciples of Jesus become a Temple (Eph 2:19-22) where together they reveal God and express his praises.

Now we are the ones who reflect God, just as the Temple did in the Old Testament. We have the opportunity to bring joy to the people in our community. Just as the Temple made Jerusalem important, our presence in our community is important to God. Just as it was right for those first pilgrims to seek the peace of Jerusalem, so it is also right for us, in the spirit of Christmas, to seek the peace and welfare of our community.

Posted by Marc

1 Corinthians 6: Freedom and Oneness

Since we have received grace, does that free us to do whatever we want? This chapter is all about being free and being bound, or to put it another way, to be in union with another. Paul’s perspective is an assault against the teaching of the environment we swim in. Our environment would teach us that our body and possessions are our own. We can do whatever we want with our body; as long as it doesn’t hurt another person (it can hurt another person as long as there are two mutually consenting adults at the outset). And if someone hurts us, the legal system is available to make restitution for our damages—so that we might personally be made whole again.

Paul’s view of the world is different. Paul views it this way. We have more freedom than anyone in all creation (“Everything is permissible for me” 6:12). That doesn’t mean we are autonomous. No one is autonomous. We are either united to sin and idols or we are united to Christ. And if we are united to Christ, we are inseparably united to the rest of the family of God. These Spiritual realities must reveal themselves in concrete forms.
So what does this look like? Christians must learn to resolve their disputes with one another through one another. To go outside the church would be like asking a soccer referee to umpire a baseball game. They are two different environments and the laws are different inside and outside the church.

Sexual sin is a concrete violation of our union with Christ. Our body is a temple--a physical space united to a heavenly person; A dwelling place for God; A place for worship. Everything we do in our body is an expression of worship. Do we celebrate the goodness of God in food? Do we celebrate marital love? Or, are we mastered by our body and enslaved to it? If we serve the appetites of our body, whether they are physical appetites, emotional, social or sexual appetites, we find ourselves serving them. Service is the best Old Testament word for worship. Whom do we serve? That is where the gospel gives us genuine good news. We should not be mastered by anything because that would betray the basic principle that Jesus Christ is our master and we are united to him.

Posted by Marc