Money Changers have always been in the church. It was a shock in 1965 when Professor Thomas Altizer of EmoryUniversity, a man from within the church, expounded his God is dead theology in the "New York Times." More recently, seminary professors at the so-called "Jesus Seminar" attacked the nature of Jesus. Luther, in the sixteenth century, saw the evil of the church in the monopolistic hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. The evil was not from the government, but from within the church itself.
In our text for this morning, we read that the ones who were trading and selling in the temple were the scribes and Pharisees the religious leaders of the day.
That modern man is searching for spirituality is evident. The circulation of evangelistic magazines, which sold a modest 1 million copies per year back in the 1960's, has soared to past 12 million in sales in the 1990's. People are searching for spirituality, but many feel that they cannot find it in the walls of the church. The 20th century church seems to lack the vitality of the New Testament church, a church that started off in 33 A. D. with twelve members and by the end of the first century had brought over a half million people under the banner of Christendom. It was a church of growth and vitality. Today are the money changers still here robbing us of our energy and diverting us of our true purpose?