Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling
there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those
selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, ” ‘My house will be called a
house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.
In my view, the money changers made Jesus mad for two reasons. They were taking up space which was meant to be for the God’seekers, those non Jewish folk wanting to worship God in the outer part of the temple. They were selling doves and other things for sacrifices at exhorbitant prices. While what they were actually doing was okay, the way they were doing it was wrong.
I put this forward because so many churches and Christian individuals are flogging their products nowadays. Maybe we need to be careful what we buy, and what ministries we support based on these two questions.
1. Does it help non Christians to come to Christ, or does it turn them away?
2. Is it a fair price for a product, or is it exhorbitant?
Maybe we need to look at more than the products and ask some questions about those who are making obscene amounts of money from the products.
Rick Warren has made an absolute fortune out of his Purpose Driven series but his stewardship principles mean that he has put most of that back into ministry.
There are others out there flogging products and ammassing great wealth which they then spend on their own mansions and private jets. There seems to be a lack of integrity with many modern day, self-professed prophets.
I agree, but the problem is comparison. You and I are incredibly wealthy in comparison to 80% of the world.
I still think it comes back to how much they are making, in terms of profits. If they are obviously in it just for the cah.
RW does not charge exhorbitant rates for PDC or PDL books, and as you have said, has not only repaid his church for his wage over the last 20 years, but also is plowing a stack of cash into social issues.
It’s a good call, Mark. Consumerism has so infected our society and the Church that we no longer recognise it for what it is.