(July 24, 2014 at 11:54 am)vorlon13 Wrote: Jesus seemed quite put out over the money changers at the temple, pretty much his only act of violence, curiously.
However, in Matthew 19, when asked about the 10 Commandments;
18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,
19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
In view of that, I am hard pressed to see where the money changers were screwing up. Am I missing something, or is Jesus, for lack of a better term, inconsistent ?
The money changers invented a way to extort money from people who came to worship God at the temple.
The long and short of it was their was a command that every Jew bring a sacrifice/tithe to the temple. This sacrifice had to be without spot or blemish, and must adhere to rules of ceremonial cleanliness. It was the money changers job to exchange the offerings brought to the temple for acceptable ones. This was never a fair trade. Often time larger gifts were exchanged for much smaller ones, because the larger gift was deemed unclean. So several larger gifts were demanded for what was considered a 'clean' gift/sacrifice. Or the person who made the offering was placed in the debt of the temple/money changers.
This is what Christ meant when he called them thieves. In light of this, the money changers where identified as men who stole, who boar false wittiness against men who came to make their offerings to God, and clearly did not love their neighbor as themselves. What's more the money changers were keeping people from their God, and lining the pockets of the temple and for themselves.
