Thoughts on Non-Violence, Part Three: The Temple
October 9th, 2006 | by Scott |Jesus lived a consistent life. His actions and His words match up all the way down the line. And that’s a good thing.
If His actions deviated at any point from His words, then He would relinquish His diety.
And He would be a hypocrite.
That’s why there are a couple of problematic verses that people want to gravitate to whenever the contemplate the non-violent example of Jesus.
One thing that continually amazes me is the speed with which people go to the temple incident
as if that negates everything he said about loving your enemies and turning the other cheek.
Yes, Jesus was angry. Yes, he drove out the the animals. But the passage never says that He used physical violence.
It also does not say that he drove out the moneychangers.
The original Greek reads like this:
(He drove out the sheep the oxen poured out the sellers money overturned the tables)
Reading physical violence into this is a mistake in translation. It’s not there.
The word (exeballen) was not physical. It was the same word that was used in conjunction with sending out. In fact, every other time it is used in the NT that is the translation: Sent out.
Simply put, he did not hit anyone. He did not use violence to make a point. If He had, His entire message of turning the other cheek would have been lost.
Turning the other cheek was a way to shame the oppressor. It was an active way to seize the upper hand at the same time retaining your own humility.
Another amazing point of the temple story is their reaction after the fact. Was Jesus arrested for assault? No.
Did anyone try to fight back? No.
Where were the Roman Guards? It’s Passover. The Roman Guards are on HIGH ALERT for any type of insurrection with up to 2.25 Million Jews in Jerusalem. But they do nothing.
If Jesus is beating people up, they would have intervened.
Instead, the Jews ask Him a question! “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”
A reasoned discourse is not typically the follow-up to an assault.
If that is the case then the Pharisees would have been the one to turn the other cheek. Not Jesus.
Jesus would have been a hypocrite. With an amazing lack of self-control.
And therefore, not the Messiah.
But get this: Luke indicates that He continued to teach in the temple.
If He had assaulted people, would He have been allowed back?
Of course not.
To maintain that Jesus used violence in the temple is reading into it your own ideas. There is not one whit of evidence that He did.
We still have to wrestle with what Jesus said and did, which was remarkable consistent. If we are able to construct a defense of using violence in our lives, then we have to look somewhere other than the Christ in which to do it.