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The Lord's attitude to the Temple is an interesting study; at the age of twelve He treats it as a place of instruction (Lk. ii.46). He may even have described it 'my Father's house' (Lk. ii.49), though 'my Father's business' is a safer translation of the Greek. In the present context it is described as a house of prayer (17), as any synagogue might be described (see Acts xvi.13, where the name proseuche, 'prayer place', is used, not even sunagoge). In the parable of the publican and sinner (Lk. xviii.10) it is again a place of prayer, though some have seen a subtle reference to the temple sacrifices in the word used by the publican, hilastheti ('be merciful' or 'propitiated', Lk. xviii.13). From the Saying forbidding oaths (Mt. xxiii.16ff.) it is clear that heaven, earth or Jerusalem only gained their sanctity to Christ by virtue of their relationship to God's plan and purpose, whether in creation (as heaven and earth) or revelation (as Jerusalem). So the Lord's view of the Temple was not primarily as a place of sacrifice, still less as a static dwelling-place, but a place of prayer and teaching and an outward reflection to mankind of God's very nature. Christ neither despised nor minimized the Temple, as we can see from the wrath that its profanation aroused within Him. It is in the light of this unexpected side of His character that we can see how to some He appeared as 'Elijah redivivus' (vi.15).

It is not thus strange that this concept of the Temple is exactly that of the early disciples in Acts; they go to the Temple at what is described as the 'hour of prayer' (Acts iii.1), though it is actually the hour of the evening sacrifice. The colonnades of the Temple are where the rabbis of the new 'sect' sit expounding their 'Way' (Acts iii.11), until expelled by the parent body of Judaism. This concept is, indeed, far closer to that of the synagogue than that of the Temple proper; for synagogues were, by definition, places for prayer (Acts xvi.13), and instruction (Acts xiii.15). The modern Ashkenazi Jew will say Schul ('school') for synagogue in Yiddish, without any consciousness of how his speech betrays his theological position. Seeing that, while the Temple gave a picture of the Church universal, the synagogue was almost certainly the pattern upon which the local church was organized, this point has vast theological implications.

Cole, Alan. The Gospel According to St. Mark: An Introduction and Commentary. Grand Rapids: The Tyndale Press, 1976, pp. 178, 179.

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In Christ's love. Amen.

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