April 9, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode of the podcast, Pastor Joe, Pastor Tom Helmich, Roseann and Tyra, explore and unpack the often misunderstood emotion of anger within the context of spiritual growth. Drawing from the narrative of Jesus cleansing the temple, they make a critical distinction between destructive anger and righteous emotion.
Breaking down the biblical text from multiple perspectives and challenging traditional interpretations, they offer fresh insights into Jesus' actions. The discussion traverses Jesus' journey, the complexities of temple commerce, and the systemic injustices of the time, all the while answering the question of, "what truly constitutes righteous emotion?"
As part of our ongoing "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality" series, this podcast offers reflections on managing emotions, understanding biblical narratives, and cultivating a more non-anxious approach to faith. Whether you're a theological scholar, a spiritual seeker, or simply curious about the intersection of emotion and spirituality, you can find deep insights into anger in this podcast.
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Episode Transcript
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Pastor Joe Liles (00:05):
Music. Welcome to the TNC podcast. We are
recorded in studio with three ofmy friends. Three of my friends.
Wait. Sorry, there is a fourthfriend here, but she's not on
the podcast today. It'sMercedes. Everyone say, hi,
Mercedes is great. Yeah, it'swonderful. So Mercedes is
walking through the church aswe're recording on a beautiful
day. Might I say this day isgorgeous, and I'm very happy
(00:27):
that the sun is shining again.
The weather is creeping out ofthe 60s into the 70s. I am 100%
fully in for all of this. Solet's introduce who we have on
the podcast today. We're gonnago around the horn a little bit
now in full, full garb, which Icall the All Blacks, right? With
a caller in his pocket, a call atraditional pastor, caller in
his pocket, the one, the onlythe future pastor of care and
(00:52):
education at the neighborhoodchurch. It is Tom. Tom. It's
great to see you. Tom. It'swonderful. Yeah, it's great. I
have so many questions whilehe's in full guard right now.
Did you did you have pastoralduties today,
Tom Helmich (01:06):
on standby for somebody that's having a hip
replacement surgery? Okay? Andthen had to lead a Bible study,
like old school Bible study forone of my classes this
afternoon. Nice.
Pastor Joe Liles (01:16):
Oh, you were talking about that yesterday.
Yeah, you had a lot of work forthat. That was a big one. So I
got that that's done
Tom Helmich (01:21):
behind me. I just got one more assignment. More
assignment in that class. Nice,still waiting to see whether or
not and you go to the hospitalto visit that fellow. I'm not
sure if, okay, I have to stay ornot. So, yeah, it's kind of
being prepared. I love color.
Kind of helps you get access. I
Pastor Joe Liles (01:33):
bring the big cross on my hospital visits,
just so, like, when I walk by,I'm like, I'm Pastor Joe. I'm
looking for so and so they'relike, Yes, sure. Room 13. And
I'm like, thank you so much. Iappreciate that so and then I
can break through, break itthrough the hospital, just fine,
alright? And then next to Tomwonderful, we've been rolling
today together in the community,meeting people, growing the
church, right? It is the one,the only Roseanne. Roseanne the
(01:54):
Director of Operations, which iswonderful. And to my left in the
podcast studio, right? Yeah, itis my left. Yeah, he's back
checking me already. That's wecould be fighting on this
podcast. It's gonna be great.
And today's podcast is aboutanger, not fighting anger, not
mine, but it is the one, theonly my good friend from LA,
worship leader inter um, it isin residence. In worship leader
(02:16):
in residence. It is Tyra. Tyra,Tyra, Tyra. That's great. So we
got a full house today, and Iwanted to bring everyone in
because we're talking about asensitive issue. The sensitive
issue is we have not done thejingle yet, and Tom doesn't tell
us to the end, so we're gonna dothe jingle right away. That
glass three podcast, Tom hasbeen like we forgot the jingle.
That's not right. Tables comingback in a couple weeks, and I
(02:38):
will no longer have 11 days. Wemissed table. We missed table,
yeah, and guess what? He usuallysings the jingle with me. So
I've soloed the jingle for solong. Do you want to sing the
first part with me? I don't knowit Okay, yeah, you can hum it.
Okay, you hum it with me. Youguys do the church part. You
guys miss it. Okay? It's great.
(03:00):
479367, 479-367-2285,neighborhood church. Nice. Thank
you so much. That harmony wasawesome. Wow. We need to hold
that out and kind of, wow. Okay,that was a moment, yeah, that
did not resolve at the end,hurts my soul. So with that,
this past Sunday, we're in ourseries on Emotionally Healthy
(03:23):
Spirituality, and our series hasgone through a lot of different
emotions. Tom, you've preachedtwice in the series. Is that
correct? I know you kicked outonce. Okay? You kicked off the
series. You kicked off talkingabout Emotionally Healthy
Spirituality, right? What hasyour experience been kind of
talking through these emotionssince the start of the series.
Tom Helmich (03:44):
Especially, becomes the anger, since that's the one
that's up, it can be a difficultand destructive one. It's the
easiest one. It seems like we'drather turn rather be angry than
have shame. Yeah, we'd ratherturn that into anger, because I
was just to blame somebody else,but not always wrong, not always
bad. I think it's such a thingis righteous anger. Yeah,
there's time in the Scripture wesee that that God is angry. And
(04:05):
so there's a difference betweensinful anger and righteous
anger. You know,
Pastor Joe Liles (04:08):
I do have to say, like, when you opened the
series, and we talked through,like, the emotions of God,
right? We took through, like,what is the definition of
spiritually healthy, right? Andwhat does that mean at the
start? And then that secondweek, when I jumped in, I was
like, Hey, these are theemotions of God, and I just read
them in a line, right? Here'swhen's God's emotion, here's
when's God's jealous, here'swhen's this happening, here's
when this happening. And I waslike, we live with an emotional
(04:28):
God, right? And we are made inthe image of an emotional God.
Now, I love how you you kind oftook the adjective to anger as
to righteous Right? Likerighteous anger, right? We're
describing a relationship to Godthat deals in emotions. So we're
not devoid of emotion. We shouldnot be fearful of our emotions,
right? We should not walk awayfrom our emotions or hide them.
(04:50):
But our emotions need to be comefrom a godly perspective. They
need to enter the world in aplace where it's first comes
with a relationship with Godout. The world, and I think
that's where we miss it's the
Tom Helmich (05:02):
difference between being informed by our emotions
or being controlled by ouremotions. Oh,
Pastor Joe Liles (05:06):
that's a good one. Preach. Good point. That's
what we say when Tom's notpreaching, but he's preaching.
Preach. That's what we say. We
Tyra Dennis (05:13):
say that all the time in the black church, even
when the pastor just standsthere. Are you serious? Even
just saying it? Preach, he juststands there and he does like
the whole like, I'm here, I'mabout to give you some hot fire
Gospel before we're to say,like, preach, preach it. That's
Pastor Joe Liles (05:26):
fantastic. One motherboard
Tyra Dennis (05:28):
lady, preach,
Pastor Joe Liles (05:29):
oh, she gets out there. She gets out that's
great. Oh, man, that'sfantastic. All denominations,
all denominations, alldenominations, which is great.
So in a way, we've come throughjoy, we've come through being
overwhelmed, right? We've comethrough all these different
emotions. We've come throughsadness and grief, right, and
all these different ways. Andwe're now to a space of talking
about anger and and I thinkanger is a sensitive topic. It's
(05:53):
one that and it's sensitivebecause the people who are
angry, it's sometimes hard tospeak about that with someone
who is an angry person, right?
Because it can be triggering,right? It can activate the
anger. And I think there's a lotof fear around anger. So the
first thing I wanted to do onSunday was kind of to dispel the
fear of anger, right, and startthat. And so I did something I'd
never done before in life of thechurch in 15 years. I had
(06:13):
everyone shout angrily, right?
Kind of yell right, angrily atthe start of the service. So
both services, right? I justsaid, Hey, we're gonna pause. I
want you to shake it out andwe're just gonna let out. Ah,
Roseann Bowlin (06:27):
that was terrifying. That was so fun. I
was terrified. I don't
Pastor Joe Liles (06:30):
know what to do with both these comments
right now.
Tyra Dennis (06:32):
Well, because I had an inner monitor, like
situation, yeah, in a pack, andyour mic comes through my pack,
yeah. And I promise you, I waslooking at Mike, and I did not
think he was gonna catch it intime. So I was like,
Pastor Joe Liles (06:46):
no, stop. Turn off Joe. Turn off Joe. And then,
like, he caught it. It wasperfect. Okay, that's great. So
it was fear before the terrifiedbecause I gave Mike a heads up.
I'm like, shut my mic down,like, when I do the shut, yeah,
two, three, go, yeah. So good.
That's great. And then you saidit was joyful.
Roseann Bowlin (07:02):
I know it was fun. It was fun to get to yell
at church. Yeah,
Pastor Joe Liles (07:07):
that's great.
And everyone did it now, here'sa here's a very interesting
thing. When I said, Yo, Ithought it was gonna be like,
Ah, right? And then everyone'sgood, like, it's kind of it's
hard to yell. People don'tnormally yell. It's to get that
out right, especially in thecombined space with other people
right, like, here we go. Thefirst service definitely held
that.
Tyra Dennis (07:30):
I don't know what happened so long that I turned
around and looked like, oh, theyhave some things.
Pastor Joe Liles (07:36):
That was my exact thought they were like,
struggling. I was like, We needto break some things down. This
is trouble and
Tom Helmich (07:46):
then therapeutic release. That was
Pastor Joe Liles (07:50):
very much, and that's kind of how I drove it.
What was fun about it? Yeah, andhere's the other part, everyone
did it, yeah, I did not thinkeveryone would do it. In fact,
when I said that children, likeeveryone did, I thought people
would not yell and I would bethe only one, and then I'd have
to be like, okay, not me theonly one. Let's go again.
Tyra Dennis (08:08):
There was a plan that for second service, when
you told people yell, we triedto tell everyone in second
service, no to not yell. Are youserious? So it could be silent.
That's great. That's great.
Yeah. Clearly we failed. Yeah,that's
Pastor Joe Liles (08:24):
so good. Don't do it. Yeah, that's exactly
right. That's exactly right.
That would have been hilarious.
It would have been so good. Sothat being said, I think one of
the big things is that, yeah,that first service went long,
and then I asked for service. Isaid, How was that for you?
Because I wanted to see, like,what was the shock value? How
did everyone feel? Did everyonefeel so uncomfortable they don't
(08:46):
know what to do? And honestly,they were like, No, like that,
like we needed that. Like itfelt good. So okay. So then I
went and said, Should I havesecond service do it? And
they're like, you have to makesecond service if you made us do
it, like, second service has todo it. And so, and the
interesting part of the secondservice didn't want to do it. So
I was like, Oh, you can be angryat first service, because they
said you have to do it. Theydidn't want to do anything the
(09:07):
second service. Second servicewas awesome, fun. I mean, no,
they were singing, you got himsinging, you got him going. I
had to fight. Yeah? But hey,that's what anger is about.
Like, you fight, right? You getthem going. That's because
Tom Helmich (09:18):
that's right, just the crew that, like, sleeps in a
little groggy, you know? Yeah,maybe I don't know.
Pastor Joe Liles (09:23):
We need an espresso shot. We need to throw,
oh, man, espresso All right,over for second service. That'd
be kind of nice. We could rollwith that. That'd be really
Roseann Bowlin (09:30):
good. So now, ordering espresso?
Pastor Joe Liles (09:32):
Yeah, we had a coffee fiasco today. It wasn't
fiasco. We ordered a coffee.
Roseann Bowlin (09:37):
Yeah, learning.
It's a learning, learningexperience.
Pastor Joe Liles (09:42):
So with that, we're still gonna have great
coffee on easier. It's gonna beamazing. It's gonna be that's
why we do things ahead of timenow. So hey, not everyone needs
to laugh when I say ahead oftime. We are actually a planned
out church. Everyone didn'tlaugh. Some of us just looked
Yeah, it hurts. It hurts. Makesme kind of angry. No. Wow. So
with that, let's talk aboutanger. Let's open up and read
(10:04):
some scripture and truly talkabout that before we get into
that. I asked the church onSunday if anyone's been around
angry people in their life, andif that's been a reality of
people you've been around. Andso I just want to ask it here,
have you guys been around, and Iwould say in close
relationships, right? Not justkind of outside relationships or
third party relationships, butclose relationships. Have you
(10:26):
guys been around a person who'sbeen angry before, or you would
describe as an angry person?
Everyone with consternated Looksis thinking right now,
Tyra Dennis (10:40):
because I'm thinking, like, are they
actually angry? Are they havinga really jacked up life moment,
right? That's where my brain is,okay, yeah, because I
Tom Helmich (10:52):
think, I don't think very many people are just
like, angry people. You catchthem in the moment when they're
having a really bad day and itbubbles over, had a lot of that,
because they often would call911, when that would happen,
yeah, it's true. Yeah, when yourcopy, but not nobody in like,
personal relationship like that.
I've spent a lot of time withit's just a genuinely angry
person. I think that would beincredibly exhausting to be like
(11:13):
that all the
Roseann Bowlin (11:16):
time. Neighbor that was like that when I bought
my first house. He was my nextdoor neighbor. He and his wife.
He was angry all the time, andhe looked for things to be angry
about.
Pastor Joe Liles (11:32):
I constantly think that there's so much
behind a person in their lifewhen they're angry, like there's
so much life experience packedinto every moment of anger,
right, that is in them, andespecially when they lead their
lives in anger, like, that's aprevailing emotion that comes
out and honestly, like, whenwe're talking about angry people
in our life, there's ajustification that people use in
(11:53):
Scripture that even Jesus gotangry, right? Like, even Jesus
flipped the tables as well, tosay, right? And they're using
this moment to say, like, I'mallowed to be angry, and
sometimes it's a healthyallowance to say, hey, in my
relationship with God in arighteous way, I've come to this
emotion of anger. But a lot oftimes it's not healthy, right?
They're justifying an unhealthyaction through a biblical
(12:13):
precedence. And that's thedanger of kind of using
scripture to not norm your lifeor inform it, but defend your
life right and defend ways thatare not characteristic of
walking with Jesus andcharacteristic of deep
discipleship. So we opened withthe text, talking about Jesus
and this moment in the temple,right where he'd come for
(12:35):
Passover and all these people,pilgrim, pilgrimaging, I said
that on Sunday too, they have apilgrimage to Jerusalem for
Passover, and typically thereare sacrifices brought to the
altar. There are sacrificesbrought to the temple from
everyone coming for thePassover. And so if you don't
have or couldn't bring yoursacrifices from wherever you
(12:57):
came from, you bought them inthe temple, and people were
selling the sacrifices. There'ssome outside the temple, inside
the temple courtyard, which wasthe courtyard for the Gentiles,
the non Jewish Christians. Andso they were sitting in there
for the Gentiles. And theycouldn't go any further into the
temple. They couldn't go intoany other part of the temple.
Only priests were allowed andthe Holy of Holies and different
things like that. So Jesuscoming into this area,
(13:20):
recognizing Old Testamentscripture, right and fulfilling
Old Testament scripture,recognize that this has been
made into a den of thieves andnot a house of prayer. And so we
have this whole language of himrecognizing that if you come in
and you're poor, you have to paythe price for the sacrifice at
the temple. The people who areselling the sacrifice get to
(13:40):
regulate that price. The moneychangers between the different
cities and people groups, thenget to add their fee onto the
money, and then the priests geta cut of all that because it's
in their temple, and that'swhat's happening. So this is not
a one moment I see a personselling a a dove, or I see a
person selling a cattle or anoxen, or anything else like
that. This is a systemic issuethat is happening in the temple
(14:04):
that Jesus is saying, No, itbegins here, and something needs
to change. And so we read thistext in that way. So we're going
to be reading in John, and it'sgoing to be chapter two, verses
12 through 17. And what we'regoing to do is Tyra, if you can
read 12 and 13, I'll do verse 14and 15, and then can you read
16? And can you read 17?
Alright, so Tyra, would you careto start us off in verse 12 of
(14:27):
chapter two of the Gospel ofJohn? Sure,
Tyra Dennis (14:32):
John 212, and 13, and this is the NIV version
after he went down to Capernaumwith his mother and brothers and
his disciples. I feel likecontext matters. So something
happens, and then they go toCapernaum. Okay? After this, he
went down to Capernaum with hismother and brothers and his
(14:53):
disciples. There they stayed fora few days, when it was almost
time for the Jewish PassoverJesus went up to Jerusalem. Hmm,
Pastor Joe Liles (15:00):
that's great.
So, and then the after, this isthe wedding at Cana, which is
the first miracle of Jesus,before that, before this, right?
That's what they're speakingabout, right? Where
Tyra Dennis (15:08):
you turned water into wine. Water was already
frustrated, because they willcome up out of his sleep.
Pastor Joe Liles (15:12):
This is true.
Oh, he's already frustrated. Areyou saying that frustration
leads to anger? Not yet. Okay,here
Tom Helmich (15:17):
we go. He obviously didn't drink the wine.
Tyra Dennis (15:19):
Then, yeah, there's a whole
Pastor Joe Liles (15:20):
different story of Jesus drank the wine.
All right, so going on in verse14, in the temple, he found
people selling cattle, sheep anddoves, and the money changers
seated at their tables making awhip of cords. He drove them
all. He drove all of them out ofthe temple, both the sheep and
(15:42):
the cattle. He also poured outthe coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables.
Roseann Bowlin (15:48):
Verse 16, he told those who were selling the
doves, Take these things out ofhere. Stop making my father's
house a marketplace.
Tom Helmich (15:58):
His disciples remembered that it was written,
zeal for your house will consumeme. The Jesus, no
Pastor Joe Liles (16:05):
team, yeah, that's okay, yeah, that's verse
17, only you've already read an18. Now I want to hear
Tom Helmich (16:11):
it. The Jews then said to him, What sign can you
show for doing this? That'sgreat justification. Yeah,
Pastor Joe Liles (16:16):
there's a justification there, right? So
this is the text we have ofJesus flipping the tables. And
what I asked the church onSunday was this. I said, I want
you as you're hearing the text,I want you to stop when you hear
the word anger, and I want youto listen for what's around it,
and I want you to listen forwhat you're hearing and how it
makes you feel, and what Jesuswas feeling, and everything
else. And I basically broughtthem into an area of saying,
(16:39):
listen for anger. But anger isnever in there, because we
always attribute this to anger.
So there is no word for anger inthere, right? And it doesn't
appear in the text. Yet, wealways attribute that the
emotions of Jesus were anger,because that's what our response
would have been when we wereflipping tables. If we're
flipping tables, we're figuringthat we are angry, right?
Frustrated. Tyra, you're givingme such a look right now, like
there's a moment. She's like, Ihave so much to say. We're gonna
(17:00):
get there one second. So withthat, I wanted to display what I
believe Jesus was showing us inthis text and in the Scripture.
And it was three things to me.
One, it was that Jesus had arighteous anger. A righteous
What anger? Oh, a righteousanger. Jesus. And I said it on
(17:21):
Sunday. More it was emotion, notanger. But I'll go with you on
this one, Jesus had a righteousemotion, and that righteous
emotion was that it was inrelationship to God, anger. No,
not anger. It was inrelationship to God. And that
relationship to God was when hesaid, My house, my father's
house is a house of prayer. Hewas concentrating on a
(17:41):
scriptural presence towards asystemic issue in the temple
that was created long ago to bea certain way that Jesus is
coming to fulfill. So we havethis righteous part being in
right relationship with God.
Jesus's anger was not harmful,right? The whip, even though we
hear that as an anger and peoplegot whipped, no people were
harmed in the flipping of thetables. That was pretty good
that we know of, that we knowof. And then addition that the
(18:02):
whip was traditionally used tomove the cattle and the sheep,
right? Not the doves, but thecattle and the sheep. And so we
have this moment where no onewas harmed in this. And then
lastly, Jesus's emotion waspublic. That's very important.
This was not something that washidden behind. It wasn't
something that was shrouded itwasn't something that was
(18:23):
covered up. It was very public,and it was out there because it
was in a righteous way. And Ithink those three things are
very important as we look atanger, because I don't think we
do anger in that way. So myquestion to you all is one, do
you believe that Jesus was angrywhen he flipped the tables? Why
or why not.
Tom Helmich (18:43):
It seems flipping a table seems like an angry
response. Okay, because there'sone thing to say, Get out or to
drag it away, but when you flipit like that, just seems like an
angry response. So that's meinterpreting that based on my
own context and things I'veseen, yep, but it seems like an
angry response to me. Those
Roseann Bowlin (19:04):
tables were probably not light plastic
either.
Pastor Joe Liles (19:08):
You're very true. I don't think those tables
would have been our foldableplastic tables that they can
move around very
Tom Helmich (19:13):
easily, not necessarily been very big
either, though, just based on,you know, first century
Jerusalem, but not IKEA plastictable.
Roseann Bowlin (19:23):
Yeah, right. So I see anger in that, mainly
because of the flipping thetables, but in in what he said,
stop making my father's house amarketplace. I this is not the
purpose of this, by the way, Ireally enjoyed the graphic that
(19:43):
you showed, okay, of the temple.
Oh, great, because it madesense. Really hope, because it
made sense, right? But I will
Pastor Joe Liles (19:51):
link to that in the show notes if you do want
to see the graphic, right? So,yeah, the graphic is very
helpful.
Roseann Bowlin (19:55):
It was very helpful and and kind of eye
opening that there's a. Tiles.
And I think that his angerwasn't, wasn't, I think it was
for the benefit of the Gentiles,not, not the anger part. But
this is my father's house, yeah,and he wanted to be there for
(20:16):
the Gentiles also,
Pastor Joe Liles (20:22):
yeah, I agree with that.
Tyra Dennis (20:24):
I think he was pissed. Okay? And here, here's
why, like, I try to think aboutthis, the the journey up until
this point. So I'm trying tosleep during a wedding. I should
be I'm and this is gonna soundhorrible, but in this moment,
I'm not Jesus the miracle maker.
I'm Jesus the son of Mary andJoseph, and we are attending as
a family at somebody's wedding,right? Like we are guests. It's
(20:48):
a party. I fell asleep, so I'mprobably really tired. If I'm
falling asleep at a party y'alldidn't have y'all stuff
together. I now have to be wokenup out of my sleep again, taking
the whole Jesus piece of likeholier than thou out of it,
Miracle Worker, out of it. Youwoke a human up out of their
sleep, who probably went tosleep from exhaustion and
(21:10):
knowing they have this long triptomorrow to get to Capernaum for
them to then serve you. Yeah.
Then he snaps at his mom, so yousee the frustration? Yeah, he
does the thing. We never findout if he goes back to sleep or
not. The next time we hear abouthim, is him, his brothers and
(21:30):
his mom ended up here, yep, andwhen they got there, this is
what he saw and and so in mybrain, there is still this piece
of frustration. We don't knowwhat that conversation was like
on the road, just for him to getthere, and then people are
wilding out in the temple.
That's crazy work. So I couldget the course together, and I
(21:52):
could move the cattle, and Icould get rid of the sheep or
whatever, but I don't have tooverturn, because the word they
use is overturn, right? I don'thave to overturn tables unless
overturn has a differentmeaning. Then he flipped them.
There are many ways in his powerand in his authority bringing
(22:14):
that back into context. He couldhave stopped them from selling
the things that they wereselling, but instead he flipped
the tables. Now it could belike, I'm so tired. I did this
long journey. My mom had memessed up. My brother's just
talking crazy to me. Triples aretripping this long. My donkey
wanted to fall asleep mid ride.
(22:37):
I'm mad because y'all trippingand sending and now I gotta show
you who I am, and instead ofusing my right hand, this might
be, I'm gonna just flip thistable. Or it could be what
Roseanne said, I'm so disgustedthat you would turn my father's
house into a circus like this,that you would treat these
people who are already on themargins. You would marginalize
them more in a place youdefinitely aren't supposed to do
(23:00):
that. The quickest way I can getyou to stop is to flip the
table. I just have to remove itfrom your power. So I still
think that comes with anger,though, because he's Jesus. He
could have done it a milliondifferent ways. And I think
Roseann Bowlin (23:14):
that sometimes we people out here in the 21st
century tend to turn the Bibleinto flowers and roses, and it's
all love. But this is the gritof the Bible, the Passover meal
that he went to and whathappened after that, that meal
(23:38):
was gritty, yeah, and ugly andit happened. And we're here
because it happened. And I
Tyra Dennis (23:47):
think I love that you say that too, because I I
try to think of the fact thatwe're talking about emotions
right as a series. And Jesusknew he was going to the cross.
There was not ever a moment thathe didn't know that that was his
whole purpose to live. So canyou imagine, like holding that
for so long, knowing howexcruciatingly painful
(24:10):
embarrassing that death is goingto be, knowing you cannot get
out of it, knowing people thatyou love are going to be the
ones that send you there, andyou still gotta do all these
other pieces on your journeylike but we're, we're supposed
to pretend he never got mad, henever got scared, he never, you
know, had anxiety around it. Henever felt lonely or if, if he
(24:33):
is human the way we believe andconfess, then, of course, he
felt every last one of thoseemotions. And I don't see why it
wouldn't be, I don't see why hewouldn't have gotten angry. I
think there are other momentswhere he was mad too, but that's
that's not another podcast.
Roseann Bowlin (24:48):
It's a righteous it's a righteous anger. But how
do we relate to God if we can'trelate through Jesus's emotions
that he showed i.
Tyra Dennis (25:00):
Listen, God destroyed all the earth by
water. I know that's anger. Yes,my good and perfect creation
done.
Pastor Joe Liles (25:10):
We're over.
We're starting again. The greatreset. Yeah, yeah. So it's
usually when I look at thistext. Something I didn't notice
on Sunday, but I noticed now, isthat, you know, I talked about
the 1000s upon 1000s upon 1000supon 10s of 1000s of people that
have done this pilgrimage tothis place, right in Jerusalem.
And here we are in this templecourt, where everyone's coming
to worship. And this templecourt is probably packed right
with people that are coming tovisit. And now mind you, I think
(25:31):
how many, how many peopleselling cattle and those would
need to be there in order tohandle the crowds? Think of this
like a food truck part outside astadium. Oh, it had to be a ton,
a ton, right? Yeah. So, yeah, ifyou walk into the first money
change market, like a it'sliterally a market. So imagine.
So here's something I didn'tpick up. The text, it says he
flipped their tables. Well, doyou think Jesus went to every
(25:52):
single table?
Tyra Dennis (25:56):
I think he grew like 10 feet, or
Tom Helmich (26:00):
just flipped enough to get the point across.
Pastor Joe Liles (26:02):
So, so this is where I'm going. So, and I
didn't pick this up when I wasreading it, so this is kind of
like new revelation for metoday, if I'm really putting
this together in the way.
Because when you when you guystriggered me and said, Hey, you
put up the graphic. That wasreally good. And I was like,
Yeah, because there's like,10,000 people, I wanted people
to know that, right? Like, it'sa lot of people. And I thought,
oh, in a second, I've always hadthis image. Like, there's like,
three tables outside. The frontof the temple, and they're
selling some cattle and stufflike that. And then all of a
sudden, here we go, Jesuscoming. He flips that one table,
(26:24):
and I'm like, there had to behundreds, oh yeah, hundreds of
money changers, plus,
Tom Helmich (26:30):
what? Yeah, that, that, that area, that court of
the Gentiles, and, like,multiple pillars, the whole Yes.
It's almost like, like, booths,like, yes,
Roseann Bowlin (26:39):
yeah. Like the marketplace, yeah.
Tom Helmich (26:40):
Because, like, in January, Amy and I are Istanbul
went to the Grand Bazaar, yeah,in the morning, so it wasn't
busy, and we didn't get ourpocketed. But there's little
nooks everywhere to be likethat. Like little booths
everywhere you go, there's, youknow, maybe 100 of
Pastor Joe Liles (26:53):
them, well, and I'm thinking, like, all
these tables. So you imaginethat, like Jesus flips the first
table you got the guy going, yousee, you see what Jesus just
did? Like, they're two tablesdown. Here comes Jesus next
table. And they're like, hey,Jesus. Like, hold on, right?
Like, sweeping the stuff, yeah,let's go. Like,
Roseann Bowlin (27:10):
well, don't you think that they were like, who
is he? Well, so
Pastor Joe Liles (27:14):
part of that, this is the beginning of His
ministry, right? So there's nota relationship to this yet,
right now, the people from thewedding at Cana just happened,
so we don't think that word hastraveled. So has traveled,
right? So gosh, do you remember?
Tom, look it up. Okay, yeah.
Tom, look at that. Yeah. I wantto say that it was a day journey
by foot.
Tyra Dennis (27:34):
He is mad. He is mad. He is walking around on his
feet in a donkey. He's tired,probably a little hungry. Oh
Pastor Joe Liles (27:42):
my gosh. You guys, you guys are putting our,
all our emotions on Jesus.
You're like, I ain't walking, Iain't walking for a day. We're
doing a series. We're doing aseries coming in June called
Jesus was here, and it's ahistorical series about the
places that Jesus walked, right,and what happened. And so with
that, so with that, what we'regoing to do is we're going to
(28:03):
look at all these differentplaces and the series graphic.
The series graphic is Jesus withsandals, right? Jesus with
sandals, and it's only hissandals on like sandy shores are
raggedy. I would tell it. Theyhad to be. They had to be. We're
going to have sandals Sunday.
That's what we're going to callthat
Tyra Dennis (28:20):
day sandal Sunday.
Know what? Though, like, itcould have been that. It could
have been that they saw him flipone table and was like, Oh, let
me get my act together. But italso could have been, going back
to the photo. It could have beenthe revolution being televised,
because there was this one partof the photo very in the high
right corner. It's like a littlebalcony, and it's, I guess, the
(28:40):
highest priest, or whatever,gets to sit there. And my brain
is going, there's no way thatthey came off their high horse
to be in the market, right? Theyare watching the market happen
in their temple. They'recounting the dollars because
they're counting the people.
They're making sure they're notgetting like, I'm just thinking,
think about it like business,right? I bet money that Jesus
(29:04):
prompted other people to helpturn those tables, whether
that's what he was trying to door not, people probably felt
empowered to be like, yeah, no,you're wrong. Give me back my
whatever for your whatever, andthey're watching. And so now it
creates a whole other dynamicthat's interesting, and we don't
know what happens between allthose different parties.
Pastor Joe Liles (29:23):
So, so 67
Tom Helmich (29:26):
miles, so that's more in that day's journey.
Pastor Joe Liles (29:28):
Yeah, if you're walking, you can
typically walk 16 minutes. Is atypical walking pace for a mile,
right? So you figure thatroughly an hour. Let's just do
an hour. We'll say we're walkinga little bit fast, right? You
have an hour to walk four miles,right? And so you're going to
walk an hour and four miles, sothat way, yeah, 24 you're,
you're looking at, yeah, you're
Tom Helmich (29:47):
not going to walk 24 Yeah, probably not. So that's
probably a two day trip,
Tyra Dennis (29:51):
yeah? So Jesus was even more upset, because now
it's two days because, yeah,because you're also,
Tom Helmich (29:55):
depending if there's a settlement in between,
you know, you got to bring yourfood and your water. Yeah, I
Pastor Joe Liles (29:59):
don't know.
Know if we're doing, if we'redoing four miles an hour. I
mean, that's only, that's onlysix hours, 24
Tyra Dennis (30:04):
hours. But also it's a 24 miles
Pastor Joe Liles (30:07):
too. Oh, you said 67 miles. 67 three days.
Three days. Definitely. It's
Tyra Dennis (30:11):
a bunch of people too, with different
personalities. He's walkingalongside two of them. They're
gonna get him killed. His mom'sprobably still nagging, like
it's, I'm really trying to putthis. You are building a story.
Because I feel like often I'm100% with Roseanne. We cookie
cut the Bible so much that weforget that these are real live
(30:32):
people, like, who did real humanthings, like, we forget that my
mom gets on my nerves after twohours. I love you, Sylvia, if
you're listening, because I didtell her she might she's so this
is her first one. Watch I cannotwalk three days with her. What
three you just want me to walkfor three
Tom Helmich (30:51):
days if you want to take the emotion out of Jesus in
any other story, it undercutsthe reality of the
Roseann Bowlin (30:58):
Christian. I agree. Yeah, that's true. So
Pastor Joe Liles (31:01):
here's where I want to land on this, though. So
the reason I brought up, like,how many tables there were in
Jesus flipping tables? If it'sanger, you're just flipping
tables. Ah, you're just flippingtables right? If you're starting
a movement, or the narrative isbigger than the tables, right,
you're setting an example by atable in order to put forward,
right? The real reason you'redoing this, and they're short
(31:24):
people back then, what really
Tyra Dennis (31:26):
short? That's probably true. Yeah, I wonder
how that table was being
Pastor Joe Liles (31:29):
what so I mean, but we think about this
like the reason, if Jesus comingto flip the table, right? They
would say that Jesus was angry.
They would say he flipped histable in anger, right? Jesus was
overwhelmed by his anger. That'swhat we get from God, right? We
get anger from God. And it says,God was angry. God was jealous,
right? We get this emotion, butthat's not the emotion that's
portrayed in the text, whichwas, here's the deal. I chose
(31:50):
this text because I Jesus wasangry. And then I read it and I
was like, I've always just madeassumption Jesus was angry,
Tom Helmich (31:59):
and I still think he was okay. I still, I still
side with the anger side. Okay,Matthew, but, you know, but
think about so Matthew and Markdon't have the zeal word in it.
I
Tyra Dennis (32:09):
don't think so.
Yeah, think about
Roseann Bowlin (32:11):
the Pharisees that were observing this. They
know the Torah right, and theTorah said, zeal for my house.
And so they had to have beenback in the background going, Oh
my gosh. Oh yeah, this isprophecy coming true.
Tyra Dennis (32:33):
Yeah. They had to, that's, I'm convinced there were
people sitting at that littletop area watching this freaking
out, which only led to hisdeath, probably sooner than what
it was going
Tom Helmich (32:44):
to be, which is probably why they asked, you
know, what sign can you show fordoing this? Right? Oh, yeah, you
know, like, what?
Tyra Dennis (32:49):
What also piss me off. What gives you authority
after I just made 12 barrels ofwine. You want to know the sign,
bro, I made it here after all ofthe three day trick,
Roseann Bowlin (32:59):
did that miracle then travel that 67 miles, 6267
57 miles. Okay,
Tyra Dennis (33:08):
probably she seemed a little pushy. Not gonna lie,
she seems okay.
Pastor Joe Liles (33:12):
I have an update from Mark, Gospel of Mark
Matthew, but go ahead. This isgreat gospel of Mark. So right
before this, in this text.
Context, Jesus curses the figtree. Ooh, waits away for this.
Wait for this. So on thefollowing day. So following day
is when we have the oh, we'reat, we're in, Jesus entering
Jerusalem, right? And so thetriumphant entry into Jerusalem,
(33:34):
right? Everyone's shouting,Jesus, Jesus, Hosanna. This is
wonderful. This Palm Sundaycoming up this Sunday. This is
where we're at in the text. Onthe following day, when they
came from Bethany, he washungry, seeing in the distance a
fig tree in leaf. He went to seewhether perhaps he would find
anything on it. I wonder ifthey're figs. He says when he
came to it, that's not in thetext. Don't repeat that. When he
(33:54):
came to it, he found nothing butleaves. For it was not the
season for figs. Why did Jesusnot knows this. So
Tom Helmich (34:01):
he walked for three days. He was hangry like
Pastor Joe Liles (34:04):
he gets to the fig tree. This does back up
hangry,
Tom Helmich (34:07):
right? There's no figs, and it's wrong season. I
can't believe
Pastor Joe Liles (34:11):
I reinforced hangry. This is a horrible
reality. All right, here we go.
So wait, I'm going on. I'mmoving. Jesus was angry, man.
This is Snickers all day. Okay,here we go. Yeah, here we go.
I'm digging myself a hole. Allright. Here it is. So he said to
it, make no fruit. He said, Mayno one ever eat fruit from you
again. And his disciples heardit, I love it. There's a one
line says, And the disciplesheard it like they you got to
(34:32):
stick with that, Jesus, thatfruit can never be bare again.
They get their mouth shut therest of the journey. That's
what, yeah, that's right. Ooh,you're Jesus. I ain't talking
bad. He cursed that fig treeright. Here we go, so, but then
it's cleanses the temple. Solisten to this now. I'm going to
get back to reinforcing mypoint. It's gonna be great. Then
they came to Jerusalem, and Heentered the temple and began to
drive out those who were sellingand those who were buying in the
(34:53):
temple, and He overturned thetables of the money changers and
the seats of those who solddoves. Yes. So now he's thrown
some seats, not throwing. See,we already do this. We already
made it more. He overturned aseat. He actually lightly went
over and tipped over the chairof the people selling the doves.
That was plastic, either? No, itwasn't plastic. Here's what he
says, verse 17. So listen tothis. I'm sorry now, hold up.
(35:15):
Can't see, but he is trippingright now. Okay, hold on. One
second. Tip a chair. Here we go.
And he turned over the seats ofthose who sold doves, and he
would not allow anyone to carryanything through the temple.
Verse 17, he was teaching andsaying, it is not written, My
house shall be called a house ofprayer for all the nations, but
you have made it a den ofrobbers. And when the chief
(35:37):
priests and the scribes heardit, they kept looking for a way
to kill him, for they wereafraid of him because the whole
crowd was spellbound by hisanger, nope, by His teaching.
And when evening came, Jesus anddisciples went out of the city.
So here's, here's Mark. Okay,I'm in Mark. You're Matthew. I'm
in Mark. Oh, we just, are yougoing to read the same
Tom Helmich (35:57):
thing? Well, you say that he would not allow
anyone to carry anything throughthrough the temple? Yeah,
correct. Yeah. So it's like, notonly is he, you know, flipping
these things over and but hestopped the sacrifice, stopping
him, yeah, out of that, keepinghim out of the whole building,
like he would, not
Pastor Joe Liles (36:14):
everything well. So what he's saying is
that he wouldn't let anyonecarry anything through the
temple, right? Which meanscoming to bring your sacrifice.
He stopped. He just stopped allhe said, we've made it
sacrifices. And that's not therelate. It's very interesting,
actually, because if we take itthat he didn't allow anyone to
carry anything through thetemple and from Mark, it's
meaning that he did not allowthe sacrifices to happen
anymore,
Tom Helmich (36:34):
or he just didn't allow them to bring in the stuff
they're buying and selling.
Pastor Joe Liles (36:37):
But think about this. But what so if he's
teaching, and he's trulyteaching, well, where is he at
in this place? So he's still onthe Court of the Gentiles,
right? So he's not at where thecorrect so they're about to
enter into a different place tobring these sacrifices forward,
or pay their sacrifices through.
Here's the very interestingnarrative, if it truly was
teaching and it was not aboutanger, what is Jesus teaching?
This is the week leading up toGood Friday in the cross.
Tyra Dennis (36:59):
This is why you don't walk during offering? No,
no, I'm not even being funny.
This is why church is this text,that it's why churches don't let
people walk during offering,because it's too much movement,
and they don't know what'scoming and going, and they're
trying to keep their eye on theoffering, right, or the
sacrifice. But what, what Ithink is interesting is that it
(37:20):
was very clear in Mark that heonly turned the tables of the
money changers. Yeah, you heardthat, and the seats of the
people who had the doves, not hegathered the whip, he moved out
the animals, blah, blah, blah,blah. So I find that
interesting, because if we goback to the marketplace and it's
(37:42):
1000s of people, so there'shundreds of tables, I'm like,
Well, how many tables were wereexchanging money? How many
different nations were coming tothis one place where you needed
to exchange the coin so youcould purchase whatever you
needed to purchase. So the
Tom Helmich (37:58):
coin issue is because you could not use, like,
unclean coinage in the temple,right? If it had an image of an
idol or, you know, a pagan god,and so they would exchange it to
one that did not but that it wasthe temple, I have to believe.
Was it the temple? But maybewrong on this? Well, it was the
temple priests that were doingthat. Yeah, the temple the money
(38:20):
changing. They were stillkeeping it. They were still
using the money. The money, butthey wouldn't allow them to use
certain coins because it wouldhave like a pagan god, yeah? And
so instead, they're getting adifferent coin, but the Jewish
priests are still using thatmoney, yeah?
Roseann Bowlin (38:34):
And they're making money off it's
Tom Helmich (38:36):
there. It's not that. It's not like an
acceptable Oh, very much. Soit's an issue of what image is
on the coin? Yeah, which makesme wonder. That's why Jesus went
and flipped the table of moneychangers, because they're doing
it. It's like going to anexchange kiosk at a another
country. Yeah, you're going toget a gnarly exchange rate. And
so they're abusing the peoplethat have to go to this
(38:58):
sacrifice. They can't bringtheir animal with them, and
they're also ripping them offwith the amount of the exchange
rate on the money, which makesme wonder if that's why Jesus
went to flipping the tables ofthe money changers. Yeah.
Tyra Dennis (39:10):
I Yeah, that. I thought that was interesting. I
also, I have a lot of questionsabout these dove people. I'll do
it on my own.
Pastor Joe Liles (39:21):
So I think one of the narratives that I love in
here is that if Jesus was trulydoing the teaching, right, and
this was about, it's not aboutthe sacrifices anymore, if he
stops the sacrifices movingthrough the temple, that means
that Jesus came as a newcommandment.
Tom Helmich (39:34):
Well, it's also a consistent theme throughout
Scripture, yeah, that you know,God does not desire your
sacrifices, right? Because wehave one true sacrifice. So one
more thing to prop up, anger,Luke, okay,
Pastor Joe Liles (39:46):
I was just gonna say, because we call this
the Synoptic Gospels. Yeah. Andwhat that means is that these
stories are shared in all of theGospels.
Tom Helmich (39:53):
Yeah, no, because it's not in Matthew, Yeah,
correct. It's in Mark, Luke andJohn. And John isn't one of
these synoptics,
Tyra Dennis (39:58):
which I think is interesting. That it's not in
Matthew, because almosteverything has to do with money.
Matthew clocked it because hewas he was the accountant. He
was the tax collector. Whichalso leads me to my theory that
Jesus was balling out ofcontrol, because you got to walk
around with the money man thewhole time you have read Jesus,
but IRS with
Tom Helmich (40:17):
you, yeah. So then He entered the temple and began
to drive out those who wereselling things there. And he
said, It is written, My houseshould be a house of prayer, but
you have made it a den ofrobbers. Oh, wow, you don't
drive somebody out, yeah, justout of enthusiasm, like you
drive somebody out out of anger.
But that's so
Pastor Joe Liles (40:35):
here's what we do. We leave this one open
because we don't know. We gotno, we don't know. We don't
know. So this Sunday, coming upout of anger, we lead into joy.
And joy is a wonderful way totalk about, truly, the life of
shouting Hosanna Jesus'striumphant entry into Jerusalem,
literally, the text that we'rereading. It all comes together
in a beautiful way, right wherewe get to decorate the whole
(40:55):
church with palms andeverything's absolutely
beautiful. So I just want to saythat one, it's okay to have
emotions. Jesus had emotions.
Not all of them are anger. Tyra,in addition to that, we have
joy, we have sadness, we havegrief, right? We have all these
different things. But this weekwe're gonna be talking about
Maine, Joy. Oh my goodness. Justso we know. Just so we know. So
that being said, this Sunday'sPalm Sunday, it's gonna be
(41:16):
incredible leading the Easterand Good Friday next week, it is
a wonderful time for that verychurch and all guys. People
said, Amen, amen. You.
Music. Welcome to the TNC podcast. We are
recorded in studio with three ofmy friends. Three of my friends.
Wait. Sorry, there is a fourthfriend here, but she's not on
the podcast today. It'sMercedes. Everyone say, hi,
Mercedes is great. Yeah, it'swonderful. So Mercedes is
walking through the church aswe're recording on a beautiful
day. Might I say this day isgorgeous, and I'm very happy
(00:27):
that the sun is shining again.
The weather is creeping out ofthe 60s into the 70s. I am 100%
fully in for all of this. Solet's introduce who we have on
the podcast today. We're gonnago around the horn a little bit
now in full, full garb, which Icall the All Blacks, right? With
a caller in his pocket, a call atraditional pastor, caller in
his pocket, the one, the onlythe future pastor of care and
(00:52):
education at the neighborhoodchurch. It is Tom. Tom. It's
great to see you. Tom. It'swonderful. Yeah, it's great. I
have so many questions whilehe's in full guard right now.
Did you did you have pastoralduties today,
Tom Helmich (01:06):
on standby for somebody that's having a hip
replacement surgery? Okay? Andthen had to lead a Bible study,
like old school Bible study forone of my classes this
afternoon. Nice.
Pastor Joe Liles (01:16):
Oh, you were talking about that yesterday.
Yeah, you had a lot of work forthat. That was a big one. So I
got that that's done
Tom Helmich (01:21):
behind me. I just got one more assignment. More
assignment in that class. Nice,still waiting to see whether or
not and you go to the hospitalto visit that fellow. I'm not
sure if, okay, I have to stay ornot. So, yeah, it's kind of
being prepared. I love color.
Kind of helps you get access. I
Pastor Joe Liles (01:33):
bring the big cross on my hospital visits,
just so, like, when I walk by,I'm like, I'm Pastor Joe. I'm
looking for so and so they'relike, Yes, sure. Room 13. And
I'm like, thank you so much. Iappreciate that so and then I
can break through, break itthrough the hospital, just fine,
alright? And then next to Tomwonderful, we've been rolling
today together in the community,meeting people, growing the
church, right? It is the one,the only Roseanne. Roseanne the
(01:54):
Director of Operations, which iswonderful. And to my left in the
podcast studio, right? Yeah, itis my left. Yeah, he's back
checking me already. That's wecould be fighting on this
podcast. It's gonna be great.
And today's podcast is aboutanger, not fighting anger, not
mine, but it is the one, theonly my good friend from LA,
worship leader inter um, it isin residence. In worship leader
(02:16):
in residence. It is Tyra. Tyra,Tyra, Tyra. That's great. So we
got a full house today, and Iwanted to bring everyone in
because we're talking about asensitive issue. The sensitive
issue is we have not done thejingle yet, and Tom doesn't tell
us to the end, so we're gonna dothe jingle right away. That
glass three podcast, Tom hasbeen like we forgot the jingle.
That's not right. Tables comingback in a couple weeks, and I
(02:38):
will no longer have 11 days. Wemissed table. We missed table,
yeah, and guess what? He usuallysings the jingle with me. So
I've soloed the jingle for solong. Do you want to sing the
first part with me? I don't knowit Okay, yeah, you can hum it.
Okay, you hum it with me. Youguys do the church part. You
guys miss it. Okay? It's great.
(03:00):
479367, 479-367-2285,neighborhood church. Nice. Thank
you so much. That harmony wasawesome. Wow. We need to hold
that out and kind of, wow. Okay,that was a moment, yeah, that
did not resolve at the end,hurts my soul. So with that,
this past Sunday, we're in ourseries on Emotionally Healthy
(03:23):
Spirituality, and our series hasgone through a lot of different
emotions. Tom, you've preachedtwice in the series. Is that
correct? I know you kicked outonce. Okay? You kicked off the
series. You kicked off talkingabout Emotionally Healthy
Spirituality, right? What hasyour experience been kind of
talking through these emotionssince the start of the series.
Tom Helmich (03:44):
Especially, becomes the anger, since that's the one
that's up, it can be a difficultand destructive one. It's the
easiest one. It seems like we'drather turn rather be angry than
have shame. Yeah, we'd ratherturn that into anger, because I
was just to blame somebody else,but not always wrong, not always
bad. I think it's such a thingis righteous anger. Yeah,
there's time in the Scripture wesee that that God is angry. And
(04:05):
so there's a difference betweensinful anger and righteous
anger. You know,
Pastor Joe Liles (04:08):
I do have to say, like, when you opened the
series, and we talked through,like, the emotions of God,
right? We took through, like,what is the definition of
spiritually healthy, right? Andwhat does that mean at the
start? And then that secondweek, when I jumped in, I was
like, Hey, these are theemotions of God, and I just read
them in a line, right? Here'swhen's God's emotion, here's
when's God's jealous, here'swhen's this happening, here's
when this happening. And I waslike, we live with an emotional
(04:28):
God, right? And we are made inthe image of an emotional God.
Now, I love how you you kind oftook the adjective to anger as
to righteous Right? Likerighteous anger, right? We're
describing a relationship to Godthat deals in emotions. So we're
not devoid of emotion. We shouldnot be fearful of our emotions,
right? We should not walk awayfrom our emotions or hide them.
(04:50):
But our emotions need to be comefrom a godly perspective. They
need to enter the world in aplace where it's first comes
with a relationship with Godout. The world, and I think
that's where we miss it's the
Tom Helmich (05:02):
difference between being informed by our emotions
or being controlled by ouremotions. Oh,
Pastor Joe Liles (05:06):
that's a good one. Preach. Good point. That's
what we say when Tom's notpreaching, but he's preaching.
Preach. That's what we say. We
Tyra Dennis (05:13):
say that all the time in the black church, even
when the pastor just standsthere. Are you serious? Even
just saying it? Preach, he juststands there and he does like
the whole like, I'm here, I'mabout to give you some hot fire
Gospel before we're to say,like, preach, preach it. That's
Pastor Joe Liles (05:26):
fantastic. One motherboard
Tyra Dennis (05:28):
lady, preach,
Pastor Joe Liles (05:29):
oh, she gets out there. She gets out that's
great. Oh, man, that'sfantastic. All denominations,
all denominations, alldenominations, which is great.
So in a way, we've come throughjoy, we've come through being
overwhelmed, right? We've comethrough all these different
emotions. We've come throughsadness and grief, right, and
all these different ways. Andwe're now to a space of talking
about anger and and I thinkanger is a sensitive topic. It's
(05:53):
one that and it's sensitivebecause the people who are
angry, it's sometimes hard tospeak about that with someone
who is an angry person, right?
Because it can be triggering,right? It can activate the
anger. And I think there's a lotof fear around anger. So the
first thing I wanted to do onSunday was kind of to dispel the
fear of anger, right, and startthat. And so I did something I'd
never done before in life of thechurch in 15 years. I had
(06:13):
everyone shout angrily, right?
Kind of yell right, angrily atthe start of the service. So
both services, right? I justsaid, Hey, we're gonna pause. I
want you to shake it out andwe're just gonna let out. Ah,
Roseann Bowlin (06:27):
that was terrifying. That was so fun. I
was terrified. I don't
Pastor Joe Liles (06:30):
know what to do with both these comments
right now.
Tyra Dennis (06:32):
Well, because I had an inner monitor, like
situation, yeah, in a pack, andyour mic comes through my pack,
yeah. And I promise you, I waslooking at Mike, and I did not
think he was gonna catch it intime. So I was like,
Pastor Joe Liles (06:46):
no, stop. Turn off Joe. Turn off Joe. And then,
like, he caught it. It wasperfect. Okay, that's great. So
it was fear before the terrifiedbecause I gave Mike a heads up.
I'm like, shut my mic down,like, when I do the shut, yeah,
two, three, go, yeah. So good.
That's great. And then you saidit was joyful.
Roseann Bowlin (07:02):
I know it was fun. It was fun to get to yell
at church. Yeah,
Pastor Joe Liles (07:07):
that's great.
And everyone did it now, here'sa here's a very interesting
thing. When I said, Yo, Ithought it was gonna be like,
Ah, right? And then everyone'sgood, like, it's kind of it's
hard to yell. People don'tnormally yell. It's to get that
out right, especially in thecombined space with other people
right, like, here we go. Thefirst service definitely held
that.
Tyra Dennis (07:30):
I don't know what happened so long that I turned
around and looked like, oh, theyhave some things.
Pastor Joe Liles (07:36):
That was my exact thought they were like,
struggling. I was like, We needto break some things down. This
is trouble and
Tom Helmich (07:46):
then therapeutic release. That was
Pastor Joe Liles (07:50):
very much, and that's kind of how I drove it.
What was fun about it? Yeah, andhere's the other part, everyone
did it, yeah, I did not thinkeveryone would do it. In fact,
when I said that children, likeeveryone did, I thought people
would not yell and I would bethe only one, and then I'd have
to be like, okay, not me theonly one. Let's go again.
Tyra Dennis (08:08):
There was a plan that for second service, when
you told people yell, we triedto tell everyone in second
service, no to not yell. Are youserious? So it could be silent.
That's great. That's great.
Yeah. Clearly we failed. Yeah,that's
Pastor Joe Liles (08:24):
so good. Don't do it. Yeah, that's exactly
right. That's exactly right.
That would have been hilarious.
It would have been so good. Sothat being said, I think one of
the big things is that, yeah,that first service went long,
and then I asked for service. Isaid, How was that for you?
Because I wanted to see, like,what was the shock value? How
did everyone feel? Did everyonefeel so uncomfortable they don't
(08:46):
know what to do? And honestly,they were like, No, like that,
like we needed that. Like itfelt good. So okay. So then I
went and said, Should I havesecond service do it? And
they're like, you have to makesecond service if you made us do
it, like, second service has todo it. And so, and the
interesting part of the secondservice didn't want to do it. So
I was like, Oh, you can be angryat first service, because they
said you have to do it. Theydidn't want to do anything the
(09:07):
second service. Second servicewas awesome, fun. I mean, no,
they were singing, you got himsinging, you got him going. I
had to fight. Yeah? But hey,that's what anger is about.
Like, you fight, right? You getthem going. That's because
Tom Helmich (09:18):
that's right, just the crew that, like, sleeps in a
little groggy, you know? Yeah,maybe I don't know.
Pastor Joe Liles (09:23):
We need an espresso shot. We need to throw,
oh, man, espresso All right,over for second service. That'd
be kind of nice. We could rollwith that. That'd be really
Roseann Bowlin (09:30):
good. So now, ordering espresso?
Pastor Joe Liles (09:32):
Yeah, we had a coffee fiasco today. It wasn't
fiasco. We ordered a coffee.
Roseann Bowlin (09:37):
Yeah, learning.
It's a learning, learningexperience.
Pastor Joe Liles (09:42):
So with that, we're still gonna have great
coffee on easier. It's gonna beamazing. It's gonna be that's
why we do things ahead of timenow. So hey, not everyone needs
to laugh when I say ahead oftime. We are actually a planned
out church. Everyone didn'tlaugh. Some of us just looked
Yeah, it hurts. It hurts. Makesme kind of angry. No. Wow. So
with that, let's talk aboutanger. Let's open up and read
(10:04):
some scripture and truly talkabout that before we get into
that. I asked the church onSunday if anyone's been around
angry people in their life, andif that's been a reality of
people you've been around. Andso I just want to ask it here,
have you guys been around, and Iwould say in close
relationships, right? Not justkind of outside relationships or
third party relationships, butclose relationships. Have you
(10:26):
guys been around a person who'sbeen angry before, or you would
describe as an angry person?
Everyone with consternated Looksis thinking right now,
Tyra Dennis (10:40):
because I'm thinking, like, are they
actually angry? Are they havinga really jacked up life moment,
right? That's where my brain is,okay, yeah, because I
Tom Helmich (10:52):
think, I don't think very many people are just
like, angry people. You catchthem in the moment when they're
having a really bad day and itbubbles over, had a lot of that,
because they often would call911, when that would happen,
yeah, it's true. Yeah, when yourcopy, but not nobody in like,
personal relationship like that.
I've spent a lot of time withit's just a genuinely angry
person. I think that would beincredibly exhausting to be like
(11:13):
that all the
Roseann Bowlin (11:16):
time. Neighbor that was like that when I bought
my first house. He was my nextdoor neighbor. He and his wife.
He was angry all the time, andhe looked for things to be angry
about.
Pastor Joe Liles (11:32):
I constantly think that there's so much
behind a person in their lifewhen they're angry, like there's
so much life experience packedinto every moment of anger,
right, that is in them, andespecially when they lead their
lives in anger, like, that's aprevailing emotion that comes
out and honestly, like, whenwe're talking about angry people
in our life, there's ajustification that people use in
(11:53):
Scripture that even Jesus gotangry, right? Like, even Jesus
flipped the tables as well, tosay, right? And they're using
this moment to say, like, I'mallowed to be angry, and
sometimes it's a healthyallowance to say, hey, in my
relationship with God in arighteous way, I've come to this
emotion of anger. But a lot oftimes it's not healthy, right?
They're justifying an unhealthyaction through a biblical
(12:13):
precedence. And that's thedanger of kind of using
scripture to not norm your lifeor inform it, but defend your
life right and defend ways thatare not characteristic of
walking with Jesus andcharacteristic of deep
discipleship. So we opened withthe text, talking about Jesus
and this moment in the temple,right where he'd come for
(12:35):
Passover and all these people,pilgrim, pilgrimaging, I said
that on Sunday too, they have apilgrimage to Jerusalem for
Passover, and typically thereare sacrifices brought to the
altar. There are sacrificesbrought to the temple from
everyone coming for thePassover. And so if you don't
have or couldn't bring yoursacrifices from wherever you
(12:57):
came from, you bought them inthe temple, and people were
selling the sacrifices. There'ssome outside the temple, inside
the temple courtyard, which wasthe courtyard for the Gentiles,
the non Jewish Christians. Andso they were sitting in there
for the Gentiles. And theycouldn't go any further into the
temple. They couldn't go intoany other part of the temple.
Only priests were allowed andthe Holy of Holies and different
things like that. So Jesuscoming into this area,
(13:20):
recognizing Old Testamentscripture, right and fulfilling
Old Testament scripture,recognize that this has been
made into a den of thieves andnot a house of prayer. And so we
have this whole language of himrecognizing that if you come in
and you're poor, you have to paythe price for the sacrifice at
the temple. The people who areselling the sacrifice get to
(13:40):
regulate that price. The moneychangers between the different
cities and people groups, thenget to add their fee onto the
money, and then the priests geta cut of all that because it's
in their temple, and that'swhat's happening. So this is not
a one moment I see a personselling a a dove, or I see a
person selling a cattle or anoxen, or anything else like
that. This is a systemic issuethat is happening in the temple
(14:04):
that Jesus is saying, No, itbegins here, and something needs
to change. And so we read thistext in that way. So we're going
to be reading in John, and it'sgoing to be chapter two, verses
12 through 17. And what we'regoing to do is Tyra, if you can
read 12 and 13, I'll do verse 14and 15, and then can you read
16? And can you read 17?
Alright, so Tyra, would you careto start us off in verse 12 of
(14:27):
chapter two of the Gospel ofJohn? Sure,
Tyra Dennis (14:32):
John 212, and 13, and this is the NIV version
after he went down to Capernaumwith his mother and brothers and
his disciples. I feel likecontext matters. So something
happens, and then they go toCapernaum. Okay? After this, he
went down to Capernaum with hismother and brothers and his
(14:53):
disciples. There they stayed fora few days, when it was almost
time for the Jewish PassoverJesus went up to Jerusalem. Hmm,
Pastor Joe Liles (15:00):
that's great.
So, and then the after, this isthe wedding at Cana, which is
the first miracle of Jesus,before that, before this, right?
That's what they're speakingabout, right? Where
Tyra Dennis (15:08):
you turned water into wine. Water was already
frustrated, because they willcome up out of his sleep.
Pastor Joe Liles (15:12):
This is true.
Oh, he's already frustrated. Areyou saying that frustration
leads to anger? Not yet. Okay,here
Tom Helmich (15:17):
we go. He obviously didn't drink the wine.
Tyra Dennis (15:19):
Then, yeah, there's a whole
Pastor Joe Liles (15:20):
different story of Jesus drank the wine.
All right, so going on in verse14, in the temple, he found
people selling cattle, sheep anddoves, and the money changers
seated at their tables making awhip of cords. He drove them
all. He drove all of them out ofthe temple, both the sheep and
(15:42):
the cattle. He also poured outthe coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables.
Roseann Bowlin (15:48):
Verse 16, he told those who were selling the
doves, Take these things out ofhere. Stop making my father's
house a marketplace.
Tom Helmich (15:58):
His disciples remembered that it was written,
zeal for your house will consumeme. The Jesus, no
Pastor Joe Liles (16:05):
team, yeah, that's okay, yeah, that's verse
17, only you've already read an18. Now I want to hear
Tom Helmich (16:11):
it. The Jews then said to him, What sign can you
show for doing this? That'sgreat justification. Yeah,
Pastor Joe Liles (16:16):
there's a justification there, right? So
this is the text we have ofJesus flipping the tables. And
what I asked the church onSunday was this. I said, I want
you as you're hearing the text,I want you to stop when you hear
the word anger, and I want youto listen for what's around it,
and I want you to listen forwhat you're hearing and how it
makes you feel, and what Jesuswas feeling, and everything
else. And I basically broughtthem into an area of saying,
(16:39):
listen for anger. But anger isnever in there, because we
always attribute this to anger.
So there is no word for anger inthere, right? And it doesn't
appear in the text. Yet, wealways attribute that the
emotions of Jesus were anger,because that's what our response
would have been when we wereflipping tables. If we're
flipping tables, we're figuringthat we are angry, right?
Frustrated. Tyra, you're givingme such a look right now, like
there's a moment. She's like, Ihave so much to say. We're gonna
(17:00):
get there one second. So withthat, I wanted to display what I
believe Jesus was showing us inthis text and in the Scripture.
And it was three things to me.
One, it was that Jesus had arighteous anger. A righteous
What anger? Oh, a righteousanger. Jesus. And I said it on
(17:21):
Sunday. More it was emotion, notanger. But I'll go with you on
this one, Jesus had a righteousemotion, and that righteous
emotion was that it was inrelationship to God, anger. No,
not anger. It was inrelationship to God. And that
relationship to God was when hesaid, My house, my father's
house is a house of prayer. Hewas concentrating on a
(17:41):
scriptural presence towards asystemic issue in the temple
that was created long ago to bea certain way that Jesus is
coming to fulfill. So we havethis righteous part being in
right relationship with God.
Jesus's anger was not harmful,right? The whip, even though we
hear that as an anger and peoplegot whipped, no people were
harmed in the flipping of thetables. That was pretty good
that we know of, that we knowof. And then addition that the
(18:02):
whip was traditionally used tomove the cattle and the sheep,
right? Not the doves, but thecattle and the sheep. And so we
have this moment where no onewas harmed in this. And then
lastly, Jesus's emotion waspublic. That's very important.
This was not something that washidden behind. It wasn't
something that was shrouded itwasn't something that was
(18:23):
covered up. It was very public,and it was out there because it
was in a righteous way. And Ithink those three things are
very important as we look atanger, because I don't think we
do anger in that way. So myquestion to you all is one, do
you believe that Jesus was angrywhen he flipped the tables? Why
or why not.
Tom Helmich (18:43):
It seems flipping a table seems like an angry
response. Okay, because there'sone thing to say, Get out or to
drag it away, but when you flipit like that, just seems like an
angry response. So that's meinterpreting that based on my
own context and things I'veseen, yep, but it seems like an
angry response to me. Those
Roseann Bowlin (19:04):
tables were probably not light plastic
either.
Pastor Joe Liles (19:08):
You're very true. I don't think those tables
would have been our foldableplastic tables that they can
move around very
Tom Helmich (19:13):
easily, not necessarily been very big
either, though, just based on,you know, first century
Jerusalem, but not IKEA plastictable.
Roseann Bowlin (19:23):
Yeah, right. So I see anger in that, mainly
because of the flipping thetables, but in in what he said,
stop making my father's house amarketplace. I this is not the
purpose of this, by the way, Ireally enjoyed the graphic that
(19:43):
you showed, okay, of the temple.
Oh, great, because it madesense. Really hope, because it
made sense, right? But I will
Pastor Joe Liles (19:51):
link to that in the show notes if you do want
to see the graphic, right? So,yeah, the graphic is very
helpful.
Roseann Bowlin (19:55):
It was very helpful and and kind of eye
opening that there's a. Tiles.
And I think that his angerwasn't, wasn't, I think it was
for the benefit of the Gentiles,not, not the anger part. But
this is my father's house, yeah,and he wanted to be there for
(20:16):
the Gentiles also,
Pastor Joe Liles (20:22):
yeah, I agree with that.
Tyra Dennis (20:24):
I think he was pissed. Okay? And here, here's
why, like, I try to think aboutthis, the the journey up until
this point. So I'm trying tosleep during a wedding. I should
be I'm and this is gonna soundhorrible, but in this moment,
I'm not Jesus the miracle maker.
I'm Jesus the son of Mary andJoseph, and we are attending as
a family at somebody's wedding,right? Like we are guests. It's
(20:48):
a party. I fell asleep, so I'mprobably really tired. If I'm
falling asleep at a party y'alldidn't have y'all stuff
together. I now have to be wokenup out of my sleep again, taking
the whole Jesus piece of likeholier than thou out of it,
Miracle Worker, out of it. Youwoke a human up out of their
sleep, who probably went tosleep from exhaustion and
(21:10):
knowing they have this long triptomorrow to get to Capernaum for
them to then serve you. Yeah.
Then he snaps at his mom, so yousee the frustration? Yeah, he
does the thing. We never findout if he goes back to sleep or
not. The next time we hear abouthim, is him, his brothers and
(21:30):
his mom ended up here, yep, andwhen they got there, this is
what he saw and and so in mybrain, there is still this piece
of frustration. We don't knowwhat that conversation was like
on the road, just for him to getthere, and then people are
wilding out in the temple.
That's crazy work. So I couldget the course together, and I
(21:52):
could move the cattle, and Icould get rid of the sheep or
whatever, but I don't have tooverturn, because the word they
use is overturn, right? I don'thave to overturn tables unless
overturn has a differentmeaning. Then he flipped them.
There are many ways in his powerand in his authority bringing
(22:14):
that back into context. He couldhave stopped them from selling
the things that they wereselling, but instead he flipped
the tables. Now it could belike, I'm so tired. I did this
long journey. My mom had memessed up. My brother's just
talking crazy to me. Triples aretripping this long. My donkey
wanted to fall asleep mid ride.
(22:37):
I'm mad because y'all trippingand sending and now I gotta show
you who I am, and instead ofusing my right hand, this might
be, I'm gonna just flip thistable. Or it could be what
Roseanne said, I'm so disgustedthat you would turn my father's
house into a circus like this,that you would treat these
people who are already on themargins. You would marginalize
them more in a place youdefinitely aren't supposed to do
(23:00):
that. The quickest way I can getyou to stop is to flip the
table. I just have to remove itfrom your power. So I still
think that comes with anger,though, because he's Jesus. He
could have done it a milliondifferent ways. And I think
Roseann Bowlin (23:14):
that sometimes we people out here in the 21st
century tend to turn the Bibleinto flowers and roses, and it's
all love. But this is the gritof the Bible, the Passover meal
that he went to and whathappened after that, that meal
(23:38):
was gritty, yeah, and ugly andit happened. And we're here
because it happened. And I
Tyra Dennis (23:47):
think I love that you say that too, because I I
try to think of the fact thatwe're talking about emotions
right as a series. And Jesusknew he was going to the cross.
There was not ever a moment thathe didn't know that that was his
whole purpose to live. So canyou imagine, like holding that
for so long, knowing howexcruciatingly painful
(24:10):
embarrassing that death is goingto be, knowing you cannot get
out of it, knowing people thatyou love are going to be the
ones that send you there, andyou still gotta do all these
other pieces on your journeylike but we're, we're supposed
to pretend he never got mad, henever got scared, he never, you
know, had anxiety around it. Henever felt lonely or if, if he
(24:33):
is human the way we believe andconfess, then, of course, he
felt every last one of thoseemotions. And I don't see why it
wouldn't be, I don't see why hewouldn't have gotten angry. I
think there are other momentswhere he was mad too, but that's
that's not another podcast.
Roseann Bowlin (24:48):
It's a righteous it's a righteous anger. But how
do we relate to God if we can'trelate through Jesus's emotions
that he showed i.
Tyra Dennis (25:00):
Listen, God destroyed all the earth by
water. I know that's anger. Yes,my good and perfect creation
done.
Pastor Joe Liles (25:10):
We're over.
We're starting again. The greatreset. Yeah, yeah. So it's
usually when I look at thistext. Something I didn't notice
on Sunday, but I noticed now, isthat, you know, I talked about
the 1000s upon 1000s upon 1000supon 10s of 1000s of people that
have done this pilgrimage tothis place, right in Jerusalem.
And here we are in this templecourt, where everyone's coming
to worship. And this templecourt is probably packed right
with people that are coming tovisit. And now mind you, I think
(25:31):
how many, how many peopleselling cattle and those would
need to be there in order tohandle the crowds? Think of this
like a food truck part outside astadium. Oh, it had to be a ton,
a ton, right? Yeah. So, yeah, ifyou walk into the first money
change market, like a it'sliterally a market. So imagine.
So here's something I didn'tpick up. The text, it says he
flipped their tables. Well, doyou think Jesus went to every
(25:52):
single table?
Tyra Dennis (25:56):
I think he grew like 10 feet, or
Tom Helmich (26:00):
just flipped enough to get the point across.
Pastor Joe Liles (26:02):
So, so this is where I'm going. So, and I
didn't pick this up when I wasreading it, so this is kind of
like new revelation for metoday, if I'm really putting
this together in the way.
Because when you when you guystriggered me and said, Hey, you
put up the graphic. That wasreally good. And I was like,
Yeah, because there's like,10,000 people, I wanted people
to know that, right? Like, it'sa lot of people. And I thought,
oh, in a second, I've always hadthis image. Like, there's like,
three tables outside. The frontof the temple, and they're
selling some cattle and stufflike that. And then all of a
sudden, here we go, Jesuscoming. He flips that one table,
(26:24):
and I'm like, there had to behundreds, oh yeah, hundreds of
money changers, plus,
Tom Helmich (26:30):
what? Yeah, that, that, that area, that court of
the Gentiles, and, like,multiple pillars, the whole Yes.
It's almost like, like, booths,like, yes,
Roseann Bowlin (26:39):
yeah. Like the marketplace, yeah.
Tom Helmich (26:40):
Because, like, in January, Amy and I are Istanbul
went to the Grand Bazaar, yeah,in the morning, so it wasn't
busy, and we didn't get ourpocketed. But there's little
nooks everywhere to be likethat. Like little booths
everywhere you go, there's, youknow, maybe 100 of
Pastor Joe Liles (26:53):
them, well, and I'm thinking, like, all
these tables. So you imaginethat, like Jesus flips the first
table you got the guy going, yousee, you see what Jesus just
did? Like, they're two tablesdown. Here comes Jesus next
table. And they're like, hey,Jesus. Like, hold on, right?
Like, sweeping the stuff, yeah,let's go. Like,
Roseann Bowlin (27:10):
well, don't you think that they were like, who
is he? Well, so
Pastor Joe Liles (27:14):
part of that, this is the beginning of His
ministry, right? So there's nota relationship to this yet,
right now, the people from thewedding at Cana just happened,
so we don't think that word hastraveled. So has traveled,
right? So gosh, do you remember?
Tom, look it up. Okay, yeah.
Tom, look at that. Yeah. I wantto say that it was a day journey
by foot.
Tyra Dennis (27:34):
He is mad. He is mad. He is walking around on his
feet in a donkey. He's tired,probably a little hungry. Oh
Pastor Joe Liles (27:42):
my gosh. You guys, you guys are putting our,
all our emotions on Jesus.
You're like, I ain't walking, Iain't walking for a day. We're
doing a series. We're doing aseries coming in June called
Jesus was here, and it's ahistorical series about the
places that Jesus walked, right,and what happened. And so with
that, so with that, what we'regoing to do is we're going to
(28:03):
look at all these differentplaces and the series graphic.
The series graphic is Jesus withsandals, right? Jesus with
sandals, and it's only hissandals on like sandy shores are
raggedy. I would tell it. Theyhad to be. They had to be. We're
going to have sandals Sunday.
That's what we're going to callthat
Tyra Dennis (28:20):
day sandal Sunday.
Know what? Though, like, itcould have been that. It could
have been that they saw him flipone table and was like, Oh, let
me get my act together. But italso could have been, going back
to the photo. It could have beenthe revolution being televised,
because there was this one partof the photo very in the high
right corner. It's like a littlebalcony, and it's, I guess, the
(28:40):
highest priest, or whatever,gets to sit there. And my brain
is going, there's no way thatthey came off their high horse
to be in the market, right? Theyare watching the market happen
in their temple. They'recounting the dollars because
they're counting the people.
They're making sure they're notgetting like, I'm just thinking,
think about it like business,right? I bet money that Jesus
(29:04):
prompted other people to helpturn those tables, whether
that's what he was trying to door not, people probably felt
empowered to be like, yeah, no,you're wrong. Give me back my
whatever for your whatever, andthey're watching. And so now it
creates a whole other dynamicthat's interesting, and we don't
know what happens between allthose different parties.
Pastor Joe Liles (29:23):
So, so 67
Tom Helmich (29:26):
miles, so that's more in that day's journey.
Pastor Joe Liles (29:28):
Yeah, if you're walking, you can
typically walk 16 minutes. Is atypical walking pace for a mile,
right? So you figure thatroughly an hour. Let's just do
an hour. We'll say we're walkinga little bit fast, right? You
have an hour to walk four miles,right? And so you're going to
walk an hour and four miles, sothat way, yeah, 24 you're,
you're looking at, yeah, you're
Tom Helmich (29:47):
not going to walk 24 Yeah, probably not. So that's
probably a two day trip,
Tyra Dennis (29:51):
yeah? So Jesus was even more upset, because now
it's two days because, yeah,because you're also,
Tom Helmich (29:55):
depending if there's a settlement in between,
you know, you got to bring yourfood and your water. Yeah, I
Pastor Joe Liles (29:59):
don't know.
Know if we're doing, if we'redoing four miles an hour. I
mean, that's only, that's onlysix hours, 24
Tyra Dennis (30:04):
hours. But also it's a 24 miles
Pastor Joe Liles (30:07):
too. Oh, you said 67 miles. 67 three days.
Three days. Definitely. It's
Tyra Dennis (30:11):
a bunch of people too, with different
personalities. He's walkingalongside two of them. They're
gonna get him killed. His mom'sprobably still nagging, like
it's, I'm really trying to putthis. You are building a story.
Because I feel like often I'm100% with Roseanne. We cookie
cut the Bible so much that weforget that these are real live
(30:32):
people, like, who did real humanthings, like, we forget that my
mom gets on my nerves after twohours. I love you, Sylvia, if
you're listening, because I didtell her she might she's so this
is her first one. Watch I cannotwalk three days with her. What
three you just want me to walkfor three
Tom Helmich (30:51):
days if you want to take the emotion out of Jesus in
any other story, it undercutsthe reality of the
Roseann Bowlin (30:58):
Christian. I agree. Yeah, that's true. So
Pastor Joe Liles (31:01):
here's where I want to land on this, though. So
the reason I brought up, like,how many tables there were in
Jesus flipping tables? If it'sanger, you're just flipping
tables. Ah, you're just flippingtables right? If you're starting
a movement, or the narrative isbigger than the tables, right,
you're setting an example by atable in order to put forward,
right? The real reason you'redoing this, and they're short
(31:24):
people back then, what really
Tyra Dennis (31:26):
short? That's probably true. Yeah, I wonder
how that table was being
Pastor Joe Liles (31:29):
what so I mean, but we think about this
like the reason, if Jesus comingto flip the table, right? They
would say that Jesus was angry.
They would say he flipped histable in anger, right? Jesus was
overwhelmed by his anger. That'swhat we get from God, right? We
get anger from God. And it says,God was angry. God was jealous,
right? We get this emotion, butthat's not the emotion that's
portrayed in the text, whichwas, here's the deal. I chose
(31:50):
this text because I Jesus wasangry. And then I read it and I
was like, I've always just madeassumption Jesus was angry,
Tom Helmich (31:59):
and I still think he was okay. I still, I still
side with the anger side. Okay,Matthew, but, you know, but
think about so Matthew and Markdon't have the zeal word in it.
I
Tyra Dennis (32:09):
don't think so.
Yeah, think about
Roseann Bowlin (32:11):
the Pharisees that were observing this. They
know the Torah right, and theTorah said, zeal for my house.
And so they had to have beenback in the background going, Oh
my gosh. Oh yeah, this isprophecy coming true.
Tyra Dennis (32:33):
Yeah. They had to, that's, I'm convinced there were
people sitting at that littletop area watching this freaking
out, which only led to hisdeath, probably sooner than what
it was going
Tom Helmich (32:44):
to be, which is probably why they asked, you
know, what sign can you show fordoing this? Right? Oh, yeah, you
know, like, what?
Tyra Dennis (32:49):
What also piss me off. What gives you authority
after I just made 12 barrels ofwine. You want to know the sign,
bro, I made it here after all ofthe three day trick,
Roseann Bowlin (32:59):
did that miracle then travel that 67 miles, 6267
57 miles. Okay,
Tyra Dennis (33:08):
probably she seemed a little pushy. Not gonna lie,
she seems okay.
Pastor Joe Liles (33:12):
I have an update from Mark, Gospel of Mark
Matthew, but go ahead. This isgreat gospel of Mark. So right
before this, in this text.
Context, Jesus curses the figtree. Ooh, waits away for this.
Wait for this. So on thefollowing day. So following day
is when we have the oh, we'reat, we're in, Jesus entering
Jerusalem, right? And so thetriumphant entry into Jerusalem,
(33:34):
right? Everyone's shouting,Jesus, Jesus, Hosanna. This is
wonderful. This Palm Sundaycoming up this Sunday. This is
where we're at in the text. Onthe following day, when they
came from Bethany, he washungry, seeing in the distance a
fig tree in leaf. He went to seewhether perhaps he would find
anything on it. I wonder ifthey're figs. He says when he
came to it, that's not in thetext. Don't repeat that. When he
(33:54):
came to it, he found nothing butleaves. For it was not the
season for figs. Why did Jesusnot knows this. So
Tom Helmich (34:01):
he walked for three days. He was hangry like
Pastor Joe Liles (34:04):
he gets to the fig tree. This does back up
hangry,
Tom Helmich (34:07):
right? There's no figs, and it's wrong season. I
can't believe
Pastor Joe Liles (34:11):
I reinforced hangry. This is a horrible
reality. All right, here we go.
So wait, I'm going on. I'mmoving. Jesus was angry, man.
This is Snickers all day. Okay,here we go. Yeah, here we go.
I'm digging myself a hole. Allright. Here it is. So he said to
it, make no fruit. He said, Mayno one ever eat fruit from you
again. And his disciples heardit, I love it. There's a one
line says, And the disciplesheard it like they you got to
(34:32):
stick with that, Jesus, thatfruit can never be bare again.
They get their mouth shut therest of the journey. That's
what, yeah, that's right. Ooh,you're Jesus. I ain't talking
bad. He cursed that fig treeright. Here we go, so, but then
it's cleanses the temple. Solisten to this now. I'm going to
get back to reinforcing mypoint. It's gonna be great. Then
they came to Jerusalem, and Heentered the temple and began to
drive out those who were sellingand those who were buying in the
(34:53):
temple, and He overturned thetables of the money changers and
the seats of those who solddoves. Yes. So now he's thrown
some seats, not throwing. See,we already do this. We already
made it more. He overturned aseat. He actually lightly went
over and tipped over the chairof the people selling the doves.
That was plastic, either? No, itwasn't plastic. Here's what he
says, verse 17. So listen tothis. I'm sorry now, hold up.
(35:15):
Can't see, but he is trippingright now. Okay, hold on. One
second. Tip a chair. Here we go.
And he turned over the seats ofthose who sold doves, and he
would not allow anyone to carryanything through the temple.
Verse 17, he was teaching andsaying, it is not written, My
house shall be called a house ofprayer for all the nations, but
you have made it a den ofrobbers. And when the chief
(35:37):
priests and the scribes heardit, they kept looking for a way
to kill him, for they wereafraid of him because the whole
crowd was spellbound by hisanger, nope, by His teaching.
And when evening came, Jesus anddisciples went out of the city.
So here's, here's Mark. Okay,I'm in Mark. You're Matthew. I'm
in Mark. Oh, we just, are yougoing to read the same
Tom Helmich (35:57):
thing? Well, you say that he would not allow
anyone to carry anything throughthrough the temple? Yeah,
correct. Yeah. So it's like, notonly is he, you know, flipping
these things over and but hestopped the sacrifice, stopping
him, yeah, out of that, keepinghim out of the whole building,
like he would, not
Pastor Joe Liles (36:14):
everything well. So what he's saying is
that he wouldn't let anyonecarry anything through the
temple, right? Which meanscoming to bring your sacrifice.
He stopped. He just stopped allhe said, we've made it
sacrifices. And that's not therelate. It's very interesting,
actually, because if we take itthat he didn't allow anyone to
carry anything through thetemple and from Mark, it's
meaning that he did not allowthe sacrifices to happen
anymore,
Tom Helmich (36:34):
or he just didn't allow them to bring in the stuff
they're buying and selling.
Pastor Joe Liles (36:37):
But think about this. But what so if he's
teaching, and he's trulyteaching, well, where is he at
in this place? So he's still onthe Court of the Gentiles,
right? So he's not at where thecorrect so they're about to
enter into a different place tobring these sacrifices forward,
or pay their sacrifices through.
Here's the very interestingnarrative, if it truly was
teaching and it was not aboutanger, what is Jesus teaching?
This is the week leading up toGood Friday in the cross.
Tyra Dennis (36:59):
This is why you don't walk during offering? No,
no, I'm not even being funny.
This is why church is this text,that it's why churches don't let
people walk during offering,because it's too much movement,
and they don't know what'scoming and going, and they're
trying to keep their eye on theoffering, right, or the
sacrifice. But what, what Ithink is interesting is that it
(37:20):
was very clear in Mark that heonly turned the tables of the
money changers. Yeah, you heardthat, and the seats of the
people who had the doves, not hegathered the whip, he moved out
the animals, blah, blah, blah,blah. So I find that
interesting, because if we goback to the marketplace and it's
(37:42):
1000s of people, so there'shundreds of tables, I'm like,
Well, how many tables were wereexchanging money? How many
different nations were coming tothis one place where you needed
to exchange the coin so youcould purchase whatever you
needed to purchase. So the
Tom Helmich (37:58):
coin issue is because you could not use, like,
unclean coinage in the temple,right? If it had an image of an
idol or, you know, a pagan god,and so they would exchange it to
one that did not but that it wasthe temple, I have to believe.
Was it the temple? But maybewrong on this? Well, it was the
temple priests that were doingthat. Yeah, the temple the money
(38:20):
changing. They were stillkeeping it. They were still
using the money. The money, butthey wouldn't allow them to use
certain coins because it wouldhave like a pagan god, yeah? And
so instead, they're getting adifferent coin, but the Jewish
priests are still using thatmoney, yeah?
Roseann Bowlin (38:34):
And they're making money off it's
Tom Helmich (38:36):
there. It's not that. It's not like an
acceptable Oh, very much. Soit's an issue of what image is
on the coin? Yeah, which makesme wonder. That's why Jesus went
and flipped the table of moneychangers, because they're doing
it. It's like going to anexchange kiosk at a another
country. Yeah, you're going toget a gnarly exchange rate. And
so they're abusing the peoplethat have to go to this
(38:58):
sacrifice. They can't bringtheir animal with them, and
they're also ripping them offwith the amount of the exchange
rate on the money, which makesme wonder if that's why Jesus
went to flipping the tables ofthe money changers. Yeah.
Tyra Dennis (39:10):
I Yeah, that. I thought that was interesting. I
also, I have a lot of questionsabout these dove people. I'll do
it on my own.
Pastor Joe Liles (39:21):
So I think one of the narratives that I love in
here is that if Jesus was trulydoing the teaching, right, and
this was about, it's not aboutthe sacrifices anymore, if he
stops the sacrifices movingthrough the temple, that means
that Jesus came as a newcommandment.
Tom Helmich (39:34):
Well, it's also a consistent theme throughout
Scripture, yeah, that you know,God does not desire your
sacrifices, right? Because wehave one true sacrifice. So one
more thing to prop up, anger,Luke, okay,
Pastor Joe Liles (39:46):
I was just gonna say, because we call this
the Synoptic Gospels. Yeah. Andwhat that means is that these
stories are shared in all of theGospels.
Tom Helmich (39:53):
Yeah, no, because it's not in Matthew, Yeah,
correct. It's in Mark, Luke andJohn. And John isn't one of
these synoptics,
Tyra Dennis (39:58):
which I think is interesting. That it's not in
Matthew, because almosteverything has to do with money.
Matthew clocked it because hewas he was the accountant. He
was the tax collector. Whichalso leads me to my theory that
Jesus was balling out ofcontrol, because you got to walk
around with the money man thewhole time you have read Jesus,
but IRS with
Tom Helmich (40:17):
you, yeah. So then He entered the temple and began
to drive out those who wereselling things there. And he
said, It is written, My houseshould be a house of prayer, but
you have made it a den ofrobbers. Oh, wow, you don't
drive somebody out, yeah, justout of enthusiasm, like you
drive somebody out out of anger.
But that's so
Pastor Joe Liles (40:35):
here's what we do. We leave this one open
because we don't know. We gotno, we don't know. We don't
know. So this Sunday, coming upout of anger, we lead into joy.
And joy is a wonderful way totalk about, truly, the life of
shouting Hosanna Jesus'striumphant entry into Jerusalem,
literally, the text that we'rereading. It all comes together
in a beautiful way, right wherewe get to decorate the whole
(40:55):
church with palms andeverything's absolutely
beautiful. So I just want to saythat one, it's okay to have
emotions. Jesus had emotions.
Not all of them are anger. Tyra,in addition to that, we have
joy, we have sadness, we havegrief, right? We have all these
different things. But this weekwe're gonna be talking about
Maine, Joy. Oh my goodness. Justso we know. Just so we know. So
that being said, this Sunday'sPalm Sunday, it's gonna be
(41:16):
incredible leading the Easterand Good Friday next week, it is
a wonderful time for that verychurch and all guys. People
said, Amen, amen. You.
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