That Thing Jesus Did Not Do (But You Think He Did)

For years, memes have gone around that have some iteration of this language: “When someone says, ‘what would Jesus do,’ remember that flipping tables and chasing people with a whip is within the realm of possibilities.”

It’s funny, right?

Sure.

I understand that I am one of the most boring people on the planet. I need a better sense of humor. I’m not fun. I’ll admit that up front. 

I still think this meme reveals a fatal flaw in how we see Jesus in this story. Because if we’re not careful, we’ll think that even on some funny level, this story shows Jesus being angry, forceful, and donning a sort of mid-century John Wayne grit amidst a bunch of crooked religious higher-ups and politicians. 

And maybe there’s a slight twinge of truth in that last idea, but I wouldn’t even go that far. 

The common reaction to this scene in John is that Jesus walked up to the temple, saw the money changers and merchants handling their business, and in a moment of pure, holy rage twisted together a whip and created an Indiana Jones salvation moment, flipping tables and screaming at the Nazis. 

Let’s read it (This excerpt is from John chapter 2, though the story shows up in each gospel):

The Jewish Passover was near, and so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and he also found the money changers sitting there. After making a whip out of cords, he drove everyone out of the temple with their sheep and oxen. He also poured out the money changers’ coins and overturned the tables. He told those who were selling doves, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!

There you have it. Jesus shows us righteous anger and wipes the floor of all evil; so let’s not throw out the possibility that Christians might need to brandish their whips and flip tables when something is corrupt.

With love in my heart, I would like to wholeheartedly reject that idea.

Jesus grew up within the second-temple Jewish tradition (Lk. 2:21-24; 41-47; 4:16), and visited the temple numerous times throughout his life. Flavius Josephus describes the bustling marketplace of the temple that existed in Jesus’ day, so this was not a new development that popped up during his visit in John’s gospel. Jesus saw this corruption every time he went to Jerusalem and visited the temple. The audacity of the marketplace corrupting the temple was no surprise to Jesus.

So why did he choose this visit to drive every merchant out of the temple?

If you look at this story in all four gospels, you’ll find that they all share a couple of elements of the narrative. (Only in John does he “make” a whip and pour out coins. In Luke, he doesn’t overturn any tables. In Mark, he stops people from carrying their goods into the temple. In Matthew and Mark, he overturns the seats of the dove sellers.) 

But one event takes place in all four gospels: He drives out the merchants.

And he says these powerful words, “Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” 

The Greek plays on the word “house.” The Greek phrase (οἶκον ἐμπορίου) often translates as “marketplace." But in English, this misses the clever wordplay. John is highlighting not the offensive activity itself, but its location. The “house” of God, the temple where His presence dwells, is meant to bring love and justice to those graced by it. The holy presence of God should fill the “house,” and Jesus (who is God himself, the true light, life, temple, bread, water, vine, land, and source) alone has all authority to correct this injustice. 

The issue at play is that a place meant to act as the divine dwelling between heaven and earth, the safe and sacred living room between the God of the cosmos and his beloved creation, has become a place where those unfit to offer what God truly desires (the religious elite) have turned it into a system that elevates themselves at the expense of others. But Jesus chooses this moment to initiate his “cleansing” of God’s house because this story sets in motion a series of events that lead to his ultimate sacrifice. In the other three gospels, this narrative occurs during Jesus’ final week of ministry, before he is arrested and sentenced to death. In John, the story happens much earlier, but that’s because John is making a bigger theological claim.

Watch this.

Go back to the beginning of John chapter 2. You’ll notice that Jesus attends a wedding, where he performs a rather simple miracle, turning water into wine. This story is teeming with beautiful imagery: Jesus takes ceremonial washing jars used for ritual purification and produces the most satisfying wine the master of the banquet has ever tasted. 

Imagine God the Father is the master of the banquet, and all the wine that came before this moment was not satisfying. It wasn’t perfect; it wasn’t truly what the Master considered “the best” (John 2:10). Now, imagine the wine is the blood of every sacrifice in the Old Testament system. It was never enough. It never satisfied. It always needed something more. Then Jesus shows up, and he (only he) produces the wine that finally satisfies, and the Father says, “This outtastes every offering that ever came before.” 

Jesus, who was initially the guest at the wedding, became the host and satisfied perfectly every need among the people and the master of the banquet. Jesus has come to once and for all offer the greatest offering that could be offered, and he himself will become that offering, displacing all other offerings.

Now look again at Jesus as he drives the merchants from the market who dare attempt to make sacrifices available for the people, and at a profit no less. Jesus removes them, but ultimately sets in motion a series of events that will lead him to take the place of every sacrificial offering sold in that market. He doesn’t just displace them, he becomes them. John needs this narrative to take place earlier in the story to show how this action ties to Jesus’ role as both God and sacrifice, displacing and fulfilling the entire sacrificial system. Because after this moment in John’s gospel, people start to believe in Jesus, and whenever people believe in John’s gospel, Jewish elites start hunting him.

Not only is Jesus self-controlled and non-violent in this story, but he is also preparing everyone for his self-sacrificing act. 

As Edward Klink puts it, “God in the person of Jesus has just entered his temple, declared it unclean, and has prepared to receive its shame himself.” 

Quite the opposite of a berserked warrior hero, Jesus is about to lay down his life and take upon himself the shame of this crooked marketplace. That's why John, the author, cites Psalm 69:9: “zeal for your house will consume me.” Because the people revile God with their twisted worship, and they are about to revile Jesus as well. But Jesus willingly takes on their disdain so he can give God what everyone needs and what God truly wants: The perfect offering that will end all offerings. Jesus is intentional and calculated. Now is the time to repurpose practices in the temple courts, which Jesus says will be destroyed and rebuilt in three days.

He’s talking about himself, not the physical temple (2:19-21).

Jesus will perform the most powerful act in all of history: He will stand up to the epitome of brutal, grotesque violence in the known world, the Roman Empire, and willingly lay down his life for their sake, undoing their power and restoring the presence of God to the “house” of God.

The same God who once established these sacrificial rites is now walking among you, fulfilling this system with a more perfect one and driving out the corrupt corporate seats of power, just as He drives out the corrupt seats of power in the whole cosmos and tramples over them in victory (Col 2:15). 

The same God who commanded offerings and sacrifices to facilitate his presence will become the one, perfect sacrifice, sufficient once for all, more satisfying than all sacrifices that came before. 

Every animal offering is now useless; every currency and cost now worthless, and every market intermediary jobless. The “house” of God needs no such things anymore, and no one will be given the chance to exploit the system ever again, for Christ has come to fulfill it all, and in Him the presence of God will dwell fully. 

That's the beauty of the temple cleansing narrative, and it’s the beauty of the dynamic, sacred actions of Jesus, who himself has the authority to drive everyone out and restore the house of God to what it was always meant to be. 

The death and resurrection of Jesus will be the ultimate temple cleansing.

Peace, gentleness, and self-control will always be considered fruits of the spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), and no story of Jesus should be twisted to undermine them. We don’t have to mistake passion for emotional intensity. Jesus was passionate, but he was not out of control. 

I wonder sometimes if we in the West have an obsession with emotional intensity. We like big revivals and spitting preachers. We like busyness and frenetic paces. We like loudness and forcefulness and wild abandon, and there is nothing inherently wrong with all of those things. But maybe we paint Jesus in a light that matches that intensity because we want Jesus to conform to our image rather than be conformed to his. Do we really need a loud, angsty, short-tempered, aggressive Jesus to defeat evil? Does Jesus need to be a cowboy of the wild west to be victorious? We all want to see the humanity of Jesus so we can resonate with him who understands our pain and suffering (Heb. 4:15), but how far do we take that?

These are not rhetorical questions. Can we at least stop and ponder them for a bit?

Did Jesus crash out?

I don’t think he did.

The Bible and Culture

For years I was under the impression (through no one’s fault but my own) that Christianity had a responsibility to oppose culture. Culture was typically bad, and using the bible, we’re going to fix it.

I open up with this because I want to clearly express to anyone reading that this is an unhealthy way to view culture, Christianity, and the bible.

There are also voices out there who claim the bible transcends culture, and that’s why it is timeless in its truth.

this position I have less problems with, but it still doesn’t sit right. If the bible is essentially beyond culture, how in the world does anyone in the world understand it? (cue the people who go, “We’re not of this world!” which is true, but we are in it)

Another position, the best one, in my view, is that the bible has a cyclical relationship with culture.

See, culture is defined as the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of human intellect regarded collectively.

All of these things are given to humans by God, and human agency allows us collectively to form culture and continuously influence each other.

The bible is a form of what Christians call divine revelation, which is revelation given to humans by God, who transcends human culture but does not disregard it.

Right away some of you are going, “See!? the Bible does transcend culture!”

Hold on a minute. God’s revelation comes in more ways than just the bible. Here’s what happens.

Humans are given revelation by God, maybe through God speaking to them, through prophetic witness, through angelic messengers, or some other way. These revelations utilized ancient cultures to frame the context in which they were given.

Here’s an example: Covenants are all over the bible. God makes a covenant with Noah (Gen. 8:20-9:17), with Abraham (Gen. 12-17), and with Moses and Israel (Ex. 19-34), Laban makes one with Jacob (Gen. 31:44-50), God makes a covenant with David (2 Sam. 7), and so on.

Covenants were one of the most widespread practices in ancient cultures. They were a way of creating family-like relationships beyond natural family. Major nations established covenants with smaller people groups (called vassals) all the time. This was visualized for the parties involved by taking an animal, dismembering it, placing it on the ground, and having both parties pass between the pieces. This was to show what would happen to the person who broke the covenant.

God did not disregard the powerful practice of covenant-making when he entered into a relationship with humans, rather he worked within the cultural context and operated in covenants as well (see Gen. 15:17).

So, here’s the process broken down:

God creates the universe, including humanity.

Humanity creates culture.

God divinely communicates something sensible to humans within human culture.

Humans then take the influence from God’s revelation and use it to reform culture.

Culture shifts and changes.

God divinely intervenes again, this time within the context of where culture has shifted, and gives new revelation.

The cycle repeats.

The bible is a collection of divine revelations given by God to humans within the context of their culture, giving the bible and culture a cyclical relationship where one impacts the other.

This does not mean culture in any way has authority over the bible. It simply means that culture helps us understand the bible because culture helped us receive divine revelation from God, the same way culture helps us receive anything.

Without culture, we wouldn’t be able to understand anything. That’s why God gave us culture.

When you see the world getting increasingly chaotic and confusing, don’t blame or fear culture. Instead, ask how this moment in culture can help strongly communicate God’s divine revelation, and pray for God to move within culture to powerfully display his truth, love, grace, and kingdom to shape this world into his good created world once again.

God’s Promises in Unlikely Places

Admit it. There are sections of the Bible that you dread reading because the immediate value of the scripture passage is not apparent, so you glaze over it, or skip it altogether. Genealogies and levitical laws are the most common of these passages. We know they exist for a reason, but do I want to be that person who figures out what that reason is? I’ll let some bible scholar do that and appreciate John 3:16 over here.

Well, I’d like to highlight one of these passages for you and share something amazing from it. You know all those gross chapters in the Book of Leviticus where God writes commands that deal with animal blood, food laws, and women waiting outside the camp after childbirth?

There are incredible promises for your future in those chapters.

What?! Crazy right? But watch this.

In Leviticus Chapter 12, after a woman gives birth to a child, she shall “not touch any consecrated thing nor enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over.” (12:4) Passages like this can be difficult to read because we’re all subject to evolutionary social morality. This just sounds cruel.

But an important thing to understand about “purification” in the Old Testament is that it is not dealing with vague spiritual taboos from thousands of years ago. It deals specifically with worship. If a person is “unclean,” they are removed from God’s holy presence, and they cannot do what they were created to do, worship and enjoy God’s intimate presence, until they are somehow made clean again.

This isn’t just about blood and rituals. Stick with me here.

There is a remarkable similarity between the middle chapters of Leviticus and the beginning of Genesis, where God creates all things. In the creation account, Adam and Eve are in the garden, spending intimate time in worship with God (Genesis 1-2). As soon as they sin, they are removed from the garden (Gen 3:6-7; 23-24) and thus removed from God’s presence, and cannot worship Him intimately. There is remarkable similarity in the wording of these passages. When we are “unclean,” we are unable to be with God in true worship, until something makes us clean again. Adam and Eve could not worship God in the garden, and Israel cannot worship God in His tabernacle. Both must be made clean again. Both locations, the garden, and the tabernacle symbolize God’s presence with humans, and in both places, God rejects human presence due to uncleanliness. The goal of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 is the worship of God. The goal of the laws in Leviticus 11 and 12 is the worship of God as well.

In Genesis 1 and 2, God creates animals, birds, sea creatures, creeping creatures, and then humanity. In Leviticus 11 and 12, God deals with sacrifices and food preparation concerning animals, then birds, then sea creatures, then rituals regarding humanity.

The Levitical Laws are revealed in the same manner the Creation Account in Genesis is revealed. Why?

Because the same blessings God granted us in creation He promises to restore to us in covenant!

This passage is intentionally written to show God’s promise to restore humanity in relationship with Him through cleansing. The author of these books wrote this because God always planned to make us clean again and allow us to worship Him like we were destined to from the beginning! Just as God purposefully created a beautiful world where we could spend time with Him, so He purposefully crafts a covenant where we can be restored to Him through purification.

So here we are in Leviticus, talking about bloody childbirth (literally) and how it causes one to be unclean. But the word for childbirth in Leviticus 12:2 in Hebrew is “seed,” and it’s the same word used in Genesis 3:15, where God promises to put enmity between the serpent and future human children. In other words, God promises to eventually overcome evil through the “seed” of humanity, which will trample upon the head of the serpent. God’s promise to fix what is broken will come through human pregnancy, which will one day result in the purification of all mankind, restoring their intimate dwelling with God. It is from this same promise that God purifies the entire world through a human, Jesus Christ, through blood sacrifice on the cross, making us, the unclean, clean again, and able to enter into the presence of God unashamed and free to worship Him, just as we were designed to do from the beginning of creation.

The similarities continue in Leviticus when God commands cleansing laws concerning skin issues and diseases (Leviticus 13-14). God also covers the shame of Adam and Eve after their sinful fall using animal hides (literally skins in Hebrew; Genesis 3:21). I won’t go further into those passages, but look them up for yourself and recognize the parallels between Genesis’s early chapters and Leviticus.

The bottom line is that God’s promise to restore you and keep you in close relationship with Him is firmly rooted throughout the Bible. Hold fast to them. Cling to them. Don’t let anyone try to remove them from your heart.

This small, simple passage about ritual purification regarding childbirth is a promise that echoes throughout all of eternity that God will make us, the rebellious, unclean, sinful wretches that we are, purified and able to enter into His presence once again.

Don’t rush through these chapters in the Bible. They may seem odd and out of place in our contemporary context, but there are powerful promises in them that reveal the hope of a good God who redeems His beloved creation, you and me.

Sexual Immorality, the Human Body, and Community Holiness.

Paul’s first address to the church in Corinth articulates a unique theology of the human body and its purposes in God’s inaugurated kingdom on earth. In examining 1st Corinthians 6:12-20,  Paul addresses boundaries and abuses of freedom in the Christian life (6:12-13), God’s purpose for the human body in Christ (VS 14-20), the sinful practice of sexual immorality against both the body and the Lord (VS 14-18), and communal holiness for the collective church as Christ’s body (15-20). This paper will endeavor to explain and support the position that Paul’s theology of the human body, explicitly expressed and supported in this passage, was unique in Paul’s day and is coherent and consistent within greater Pauline literature. It will begin by addressing the wider issue at stake in Paul’s entire letter to the Corinthians.