Zeal for his Father’s House
0 comments | Posted by St Peters on 12 Feb 2012 in From Steve's Study ::
When I was young, one way of showing off to your friends would be through your dad. You know how it goes, “My dad’s better than your dad because he’s a fireman (or a doctor, or he drives a BMW, or plays cricket for Australia etc).” Of course this bragging was really a back-handed way of bragging about yourself. If your dad is a tough fireman, then that means you must also be tough.
And the reverse was also true. If someone said something bad against your dad, you would be offended, not because of him, but because of the way it reflected on you. If your dad’s a “loser”, then that implies that you must be too.
When we were young, we would be prepared to stand up to say how wonderful our dad was, but mostly it was because we wanted people to know how wonderful we were.
This is quite different to what you see in today’s passage. In Jn 2:12-25 we see Jesus standing up for his Father’s honour. The temple at which people were meant to come and worship God (his Father), had been transformed into a marketplace. As a result, those who came to worship were unable to do so because of all the distractions.
Jesus cleared the temple because people were not giving his Father the honour and respect he deserved. In so doing, he was not seeking his own glory, but was totally focused on people’s relationships with God.
Jesus was “zealous” for God’s glory. He was passionate about seeing people worship God properly. If we are God’s children, and the New Testament assures us that we are (eg 1 Jn 3:1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”), then this zeal to see God’s name honoured should run through our veins too.
Let us seek to remove anything that might hinder others (or ourselves) from truly giving God the honour he deserves.
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