In the last half of John chapter 2 Jesus did some very unusual things. Nothing improper and definitely within the law but very much out of the ordinary. No one saw it coming. He threw everyone and everything involved in commercial activity out of the Temple. We usually say He “cleansed” the Temple but that is just a nice way to say He caused a ruckus.
Taking a homemade whip He drove out all the sacrificial animals and the people selling them. He also turned over the tables on which they were exchanging money and doing business.
At first glance His actions seem a little out of character for the One about whom children sing “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” but it was exactly what the situation called for and served an important purpose. Not only did He right some very serious wrongs but once done He had everyone’s attention. The only people unhappy about this were the religious leaders, who no doubt benefited from the business, but even they could not ignore Jesus after this sensational happening. I’m sure the crowds and the disciples waited with bated breath to see what came next.
And what did He do next? He performed miracles. We don’t know the number but we are told many people, seeing this, became believers.
The interesting thing is, the Bible says Jesus did not commit Himself to any of these new believers. That also seems a little bit out of the ordinary especially for One who was known for disciple making, but the fact is, He hadn’t yet committed Himself to anyone, including the already named disciples: Peter, Andrew, John and so on. It wasn’t till much later (Luke 5) that Jesus called the disciples into full time service and He didn’t appoint the twelve as Apostles until even later.
He waited until the more fractious moments had come and gone like the people of Nazareth attempting to throw Him off a cliff (Luke 4) before calling and appointing Apostles. By then they were beyond infatuation. He didn’t want anyone misunderstanding the call to service.
But, we learn a very important lesson about evangelism from what Jesus did here. Even though the time was not right for Him to commit to disciples the time was right for Him to call the masses to salvation, an exercise we usually refer to as evangelism. His approach to evangelism in this chapter is was I call the 10-90 rule of evangelism. Following explains why: [Read more…] about The 10-90 Rule of Evangelism
