Reading for today: Mark 11:12-19
Read Mark 12 in your preferred version of the Bible. My own paraphrase from the Greek New Testament follows.
“The next day they went out from Bethany and they were hungry. Seeing a fig tree from a distance they saw it was full of leaves and they went to it to see if by chance they could find anything on it, and when they came to it no one found anything but leaves (it was not the right season for figs). He responded saying to it, ‘May no one ever eat any of your fruit. Never!’ And his disciples heard him say it.
“They came to Jerusalem and entered into the Temple and he began to drive out the ones selling and buying in the Temple area, and he turned over the tables of the money-changers and the chairs of those selling doves. He did not let anyone carry their wares through the Temple and he taught them, “Is it not written:
My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations (Isa. 56:7)
but you have made it a ‘robbers’ cave’ (Jeremiah 7:11).
The chief priests and the scribes heard it, and they were looking for a way to destroy him, for they feared him since all the crowd was spellbound at his teaching. When it got late, Jesus and his followers went out of the city.”
So much could be said about this passage. Check out Journey with Jesus Book 3 for more prayer points from Matthew’s version. What I pick out is the phrase, “A House of Prayer.”
That is my stand, my claim for this month: that my home will be a house of prayer. God, I welcome You here and I seek You. Let Your name be kept holy here. Make this Your house of prayer!