Is God For-Sale

Now that's a good question. The other day someone asked me that very question. I think it went kinda like this "Pastor is it right for people to sale things inside the church". I don't think God is surprised at the amount of commerce that is being generated under the auspice of church ministry. Everyone knows that the Truth about God and his Word can be spread through all sorts of media; websites, Music CD's, Music Videos etc. The truth is Church's are no longer just a single building but we have church campuses. I could go on but you can see clearly that all of the things mentioned cost money and they also generate revenue.

Jesus Christ just had away of simplifying the most complicated and difficult issues. One day Jesus and his disciples where going to the Temple probably to do worship are teach whatever the case they went to the Temple. And Jesus and his comrades’ arrive at the Temple gates and they notice that folks are selling things inside the Temple. This of course infuriates Jesus. Jesus is angry because the Priest and the men working for the priest were making merchandise of God's people. Allow me a moment to explain, folks would have their own sheep ready to give to the priest to perform their ritual sacrifice to their God, and the priest would tell them that their sheep or goat wasn't good enough go back and buy one of the sheep from the guys selling in the Temple. Man that sounds to me like they were stealing and profiteering from ministry. Notice how Jesus response to this silliness he gets a cord of rope, and starts turning over tables and whipping folk’s “behinds” and then he says something to them that is simple but insightful... Mark 11:17 “And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves”.

Ok Jesus is quoting from an old testament passage found in Jeremiah. So buying and selling in the church is no new problem, you can be sure of that. So let’s look at this thing from Jesus perspective. The issue for Christ was not that they were selling things in the Temple; He never says to the men "why are you selling sacrifices etc. in the temple. He clearly is upset because the men are buying and selling with the intent to steal or make merchandise of God's folk.

Ok folks I'm about to drop some truth on you so don't miss this. Christ is always more concerned with the intent of the heart than he is with the method and or action. So the correct answer to the original question. Is God for-sale "NO God is not for sale" and the church building should-not be used to make merchandise of the people of God. So how does that truth reconcile with the issues of all of the revenue that is being generated while doing genuine church ministry i.e. movies, videos, books, cd's etc. There is a clear cost associated with doing ministry but when the importance of Generating Revenue supersedes the importance of Ministry we no longer have the correct heart attitude and we are in grave danger of having Christ pullout his cord of rope and turn over our proverbial money tables, and have him whip some behind J.