← The Daily Blade: Joby Martin & Kyle Thompson
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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The word of God is described as the sword of the spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.
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Hey, guys. Welcome back. I know for the last couple days, I've gone a little bit longer than what you're normally used to, but I'll try to, you know, tighten it up a little bit. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll just go longer, and y'all will just have to deal with it. But this week, we are using John Eldridge's beautiful outlaw law to help us get to know the personality of Jesus better. And before preparing all the episodes for this week, I asked John about the chapters that really encapsulate his point. He told me chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7. That's where we've been focusing all week. So yesterday and today we're in chapter four called Fierce Intention. And on yesterday's episode, we discussed the intensity with which Jesus dealt with the death and his subsequent resurrection of his good buddy Lazarus. And today we're keeping the theme of Fierce intention of the Lord Jesus by getting into two of my favorite occurrences in the Bible, and that's Jesus cleansing the temple. Now, some of you immediately got confused because you're like, wait a minute, he did that twice? Well, I thought he just did it once, and it was just described in all the Gospels. But I am of the persuasion, and I've been certainly persuaded by biblical historians and theologians and archaeologists and all types of folks that this is something that Jesus did at least twice. So the first cleansing was right after he did his first public miracle. And this was early in his ministry. And this is recorded in John 2. And then the second cleansing, this was the final week of his life. This was, you know, this passion week. Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke 19. So I want to read from Beautiful Outlaw, beginning on page 34. And, guys, I just got to be honest. I'm going to read several, you know, sections here. It's really hard for me to put into words what this particular passage from Eldridge's book has done for me and how I approach my Christian walk. So let's get into it right here. Then comes the thunder at the temple, and then he's going to be getting into the scripture here. John 2, 13, 17. The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem in the Temple, he found people selling cattle, sheep, and Doves and the money changers seated at their tables, making a whip of cords. He drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, take these things out of here. Stop making my father's house a marketplace. His disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me. In two verses, he empties the temple, a report that reads like the crack of a bullwhip. But take the action slowly. First Jesus observes the shenanigans and it makes him furious. Then he takes the time to make a weapon. Where did he get these cords that required some looking around? Having found them, he had the patience and forethought to weave them together effectively to make a usable whip. He knows what it takes to move a large sedentary cattle and self righteous profiteers. There's time enough here to cool off if it is merely an outburst of anger. But no, this is a planned and sustained aggression, particularly unsettling for pacifists. Following the flow of the text, it says when it says he then used the whip to drive all of them out of the tem, both the sheep and the cattle. The livestock would have been kept in some sort of corral. They would have been standing for hours, languid and sleepy. An angry man flying upon them with a whip would ignite panic. Mass panic. Animals feed upon others fear in seconds. Picture cattle and sheep running for their lives, crashing down the corrals, their hooves sliding frantically on the tiles, making them even more desperate. We have a stampede here. It then says he poured out the coins of the money changers and sent their tables tumbling. The money changers think men who make their living through extortion are reported to have been sitting at those tables. How easy it would have been to move carefully and quickly from the sitting position while removing your legs from the table that is being overturned in front of you. More panic. Meanwhile, the coins Jesus doesn't permit to them to gather their money and move off in an orderly fashion. He dumps the coins, scatters them. This is explosive. You've probably had a small handful of change fall off of a counter. They burst in every direction like a jar of marbles. Imagine the chaos of hundreds and hundreds of coins erupting off the stone floors. Now layer all this together. The animals would have panicked in every direction, their keepers running after them, shouting, trying to get control, which only incinerates the panic. Add the greedy money changers Scrambling around on the ground, grasping at their careening coins. Imagine the noise, bellowing of frightened livestock, mingled with the crashing of corrals, tables, coins and the angry shouts of the incensed men. Over this, the shouts of Jesus. It is absolute pandemonium. Someone screaming fire in a casino would not be far from reality. This is a fierce intentional man, to be sure, but his passions are neither reckless nor momentary. In the midst of the fury, there is a touching tenderness towards the doves. These were in cages. If Christ were to hurl them to the floor as he did with the tables, the birds innocent as well doves, they would be hurt. So he commanded them to be removed. Could a small unintimidating figure accomplish such a sustained riot? To pull off driving all of them out of the temple would require more than a few seconds and repeated blows. This is a sustained assault. If a frail man with a meek voice tried this, he'd be log jammed by the sheer number of inertia of the traffic. Jesus is a locomotive, a juggernaut for all practical purpose here purposes. Here he is a bull in a china shop. This is our Jesus. But is this the Jesus of our worship songs? The religious fog sneaks into the obscure Jesus with lines comparing him to a rose trampled on the ground. Helpless, lovely Jesus, Vegetarian, pacifist, tranquil. Oh wait, that was Gandhi, not Jesus. Can you picture Gandhi or Buddha storming into the polling place of a local election, shouting, overturning tables, sending the participants fleeing? Now throw a small carnival into the mix, which they also need to route. Impossible. Whoever did this would have to be really committed to the clearing of the building. Fierce and intentional, this is a breathtaking quality, especially when compared to our present age where doubt masquerades as humility, passivity cloaks as rest, and emasculated indecision poses as laid back enlightenment. Guys, I'm running out of time here, but my goodness Satisfyer, I literally drew flames on that part of that last part there that I just read. And the thing is, is there are a lot of beta male types out there that wish this part was not in the bay in the Bible. And there's a lot of reasons for that. But here are some big takeaways here from this passage. There's three. Number one, we cannot fully worship Jesus if we only see him as the Lamb of God. He is fully lamb, but he is also fully lion. The second big takeaway is we should not try to declaw the lion of Judah. We don't ignore passages like this. We immerse ourselves in them to try to understand how Jesus could come to this and how this level of righteous aggression could come out. And then third, if we are to be Christlike, sometimes we have to turn over some tables. See you back here tomorrow as we wrap up the week.
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Thank you for listening to today's episode. Before you go, if you want to help, equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five star rating and review. Stay sharp.