“And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Mark 11:17 (NIV)
Money is a good thing, it provides shelter and food and happiness and is necessary for living life. If money is good then wealth is better - Proverbs 10:15 says “The wealth of the rich is their fortified city, but poverty is the ruin of the poor.” The Lord’s actions and Words in the temple are not aimed at money or wealth per se, but are aimed at the corruption of the purpose of the house of the Lord. There is a place to generate wealth and that place is not to be the house of the Lord. We know the history of the Jews in this matter of mixing money making and prayer, and we can read the ancient history of the church in this matter of mixing money making and prayer, for the Reformation came out of that history. If we are foolish enough to think that their issue could never be our issue then we are doomed to repeat the type of behaviour that brings our Lord’s whip to our backs. We immediately think of our church and examine how we operate in our meetings, but we should pause and think of ourselves and examine how we operate in our lives. Do we mix up money making and prayer? Do we make the mistake the Lord warned us of when he told us we can’t serve 2 masters? We just naturally put money ahead of prayer.
How about this for a statement - money is good, wealth is better but prayer is best.
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