“My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. But you have made it ‘a den of robbers’”.

Mk 11:17 NIV

It is frightfully easy for religious bodies to get side-tracked from their original and primary purpose. A large central city church decided to move to a new venue and erected a building several storeys high. The idea was to rent out some of the upper storeys and with the rents help to pay for the running of the church. Soon the senior minister was being badgered by one tenant after another to alter the terms of a lease, break down walls, cancel a lease, and so on. He said, “This new building has turned me into a glorified property manager”. The head office of another national church became so top-heavy with officials that it became difficult to see how it actually related to the congregations where the disciples of Jesus gathered. And bureaucracies of this size often develop internal career ladders of their own. Not all could be described as “Dens of Robbers” like the temple in Christ’s day. But the priests of the temple had lost all clear vision of what it ought to have been and what its real purpose was. That had been lost because “the business” had become all-dominant to the exclusion of its God-appointed calling. And some popular television “ministries” have become little more than money-making operations for the enrichment of the ministers concerned.

Christian disciples may be tempted to feel superior to the priests of Christ’s day and their temple racket. But serious thought needs to be given to much church life in the twenty-first century and searching questions need to be asked about the true purpose and witness of Christ’s church.

PRAYER THOUGHT

Lord, bring your church back to its true purpose.