money changers and children

Good morning brothers and sisters,
I'd like to remind you that after worship on Sunday we will be meeting to talk about possibilities for youth ministry at Laurelton. I hope you can make it since this is an important conversation for all of us.

In this passage Jesus cleanses the temple of those who sold items for worship. The "money changers" were people who exchanged the money people used every day with Caesar's picture on it for approved coins that could be contributed to the temple. The Roman money had an image of a person on it and so was not permitted to be given to the temple. The role of money in our faith is often touchy, but Jesus talks about money more than almost any other topic, so we are called to consider it carefully.

God bless,
Sam

Matthew 21:12-17

12Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.” 14The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. 15But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry 16and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself’?” 17He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.