Jesus and the money changers

One of the other interesting things about this story that I just recently picked up on is that Jesus actually took a cord and whipped a couple of them. Hippie indeed.

I agree with Hasbeen that Jesus was angry at the desecration of the temple during the most Holy of days. For each of us, we need to make sure we keep our perspectives proper. Money should not come before God. I know a lot of Christians who don't tithe but really, tithing is supposed to keep us from becoming greedy like these money changers by having a spirit of giving. That assumes the Local Church is handling the money in a proper manner which we each need to be checking.

 

My dad's church has had two pastors who were at his church for over ten years each who ended up leaving the church under a cloud and appear to have stolen money. Church finances need to be as open as possible. Too many small churches trust one person to handle the money and regret it.

 

Agreed. I was fortunate enough to actually serve on the board of trustees for my church a few years ago. I learned a lot about what it takes to run a healthy and growing church.

 

I work in finance and accounting and I have given dad some advice on how to prevent it from happening in the future but they are pretty set in their ways. They just find a different person that they trust to take care of it. One thing is for sure never let the preacher or his family members handle the money!

 

Thelt, it happens way too much. One thing my Church does is it has a committee to approve checks going out and we publish a Church budget that everyone can get a copy of and then the budget has to be approved by the Church after an open forum where anyone can ask any questions about any line in the budget. Also, we have at least half-year budget checkups and sometimes quarterly checkups where the leader of our Budget committee makes a presentation to the Church about where we are at with our budget. Very open and transparent and any additional lines to the budget have to be voted on by the Church (and neither of our Pastors are on the Budget committee) during the year.

 

Another thing Jesus didn't like was the doves were the poor man's sacrifice. These doves were full of mites and not worthy of sacrifice to God.

 

That is great. I have told dad that what they needed to do was handout copies of the bank statements at the end of each month and to make sure it included copies of canceled checks and to requires documentation for any cash withdrawals to show where that money went.