All InSample

Herod the Great’s temple in Jerusalem was one of the largest functioning religious sites in the history of the world. Today, there is only one section of the original temple still intact that visitors can see, the famous Western Wall, a 500-meter retaining wall. 

The temple took a decade and tens of thousands of people to build. It housed hundreds of clay cisterns the size of silos, that held water for the ceremonial cleansing that the Jewish people ritually performed before worshiping. Outside of the temple was a courtyard that functioned as a place for people to exchange money and a marketplace where animals and goods might be sold. This is the same area where Jesus overturned the money changers tables in John chapter 2. 

Thousands of people entered the temple every day, praying prostrate on the ground and participating in worship services where Levites sang psalms and played. The sights and sounds of the temple were terrific, and the smells would have been overpowering. Twice a day, in the morning and afternoon, cows were butchered and put on the altar. Later in the day the priests would burn incense, filling the surrounding courts with the powerful scents of spices and oils. Priests taught crowds of people the Torah; they read the books of Genesis and Exodus and prophets, like Isaiah, out loud. 

In Acts 2:42-47, Luke describes the first followers of Jesus including a very specific habit: “Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple...”

Just to be clear, the temple didn’t mean just any church building, the temple meant one thing...Herod the Great’s temple. There was only one temple. At first glance, it seems surprising that those early Christ-followers were going to the Temple. I mean, didn’t the Jewish leaders just kill Jesus a couple months ago? And what about the things Jesus did and said and taught? Like that time at the temple in John 2:18-19, “The Jews then said to Him, ‘What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” 

Didn’t Jesus turn over the tables in the marketplace because He wanted God’s house to be a place of prayer and not greed? I think if we were to go back in time and asked the apostles and those first Christians why on earth they were going to the temple after everything that had happened, they would say something like this... 

We are called to share the love and truth of Jesus with the people God puts around us. (We know that this was definitely one of the reasons that they continued to go to the temple because, in Acts 3, John and Peter heal a beggar and preach the gospel from Solomon’s Portico). 

Everyone that we know, everyone that we do business with, all of our friends, all of our family are inside of those temple walls. Many of these people are far from God. And we must tell them of Jesus Christ and His great, true, and real love for them. We cannot let our fear—fear of death, imprisonment, ridicule, or harassment—stop us from sharing Jesus with those whom God has put around us and keep them from entering the temple.