He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’ But you have made it a den of robbers.” Mark 11:17
“The den is a place where robbers retreat after having committed crimes. It is their hideout, a place of security and refuge. Call the temple a robbers’ den is therefore not a cry of outrage against any dishonest business practices in the temple. Jesus indirectly attaches them for allowing the temple to degenerate into a safe hiding place where people think that they can find forgiveness and fellowship with God now matter how they act on the outside.
Jesus’ prophetic action and words attack a false trust in the efficacy of the temple sacrificial system. The leaders of the people think that they can rob widows’ houses (Mark 12:40) and then perform the prescribed sacrifices according to the prescribed patterns at the prescribed times in the prescribed purity in the prescribed sacred space and then be safe and secure from all alarms. They are wrong.”
David E. Garland in Mark: The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996) 439.
I am facilitating a staff retreat for the advancement team at Asbury Theological Seminary today. I love this team because they endeavor to raise up more than gifts for ATS. They seek to raise up givers whose lives reflect obedience to the teachings of Jesus. So what’s that have to do with a house of prayer or a den of robbers?
When ministries encourage people to follow the “prescribed” religious rules and to make gifts to a church or a ministry but fail to address thoughts and actions that don’t reflect alignment with the teachings of Jesus, they may meet funding goals but will not fulfill Christ’s purposes. In such settings Jesus would enter and make the same prophetic announcement as He does in Mark 11:17 above.
My role here in Kentucky in terms from this text is to exhort the ATS staff to build a house of prayer rather than a den of robbers. Father in heaven, through our lives build houses of prayer for your glory. Do this by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us. Hear our prayer in the name of Jesus, Amen.