Den of Thieves

1 Peter 2:1, 3

“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgement now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.”

 

We are warned in scripture about false teachers and prophets who through greed make merchandise of the people of God. Now that can mean one of two things: either that they simply profit from the church, or that they turn the church itself into a kind of commodity. Both would create the same outcome either way, which is turning the gathering and fellowship of the saints into an industry rather than leaving it as a free and holy institution of God. It’s no longer truly welcome to all, even if it pretends to be. And the scripture says that they do this through covetousness which means to envy what others have or to greatly desire something.

 

Those who are greedy of gain have a much better advantage using the church as a business than any other industry because of a few reasons.  

For one they can obtain tax exemptions from donations (their main source of income) which other organizations cannot do unless they fall under the category of charitable or are qualified by the government. Regular businesses and corporations can’t qualify because they are “for profit.” Depending on the circumstances, that can mean greater financial stability or income for the tax exempt organization.

Secondly, the “church” is an institution which people can easily manipulate others into believing that attendance or membership is a necessity for their lives, much like how a typical business coerces its audience into thinking they’re inadequate because they’re missing some product or service from their lives. Like marketing, churches target their audience of believers in Christ with the idea that they’re inadequate without membership to their organization, because otherwise they have no way of satisfying the commandment of the Lord to fellowship with others. (And mind you, God never intended for fellowship among His children to be associated with financial obligations, but this is what the modern church does today.) So they can secure an income just by abusing people’s conscience and faith in God rather than being transparent, because the payers become convinced that they’re fulfilling an obligated duty to God rather than merely paying for a service. Those for whom the gospel is just a means to get wealthy rely on this tactic, at least partially, and it works for them. It’s better than using traditional marketing which relies on people’s own desires; this rather resets on a false conviction placed into people’s hearts.

It’s made to seem as if the gospel won’t go forth and souls won’t be saved unless money is poured into this or that church; as if giving to this or that church is by default giving to God, and whether or not they preach the true gospel and the doctrine of Christ is irrelevant as long as they claim to be about Christ. For those seeking to make a profit off of the church, that is exactly what they need: for people to sympathize with their seemingly godly efforts and assume it’s therefore worthy of financial support. They can preach anything they want and deceive people into thinking it’s of God and still make a profit, completely void of the necessity of biblical truth. In short, one does not have to become a pastor and build a church with the intention of telling the true gospel to become wealthy off of it. In fact, it will likely benefit their riches to avoid the truth because not many actually want to hear the truth let alone be loyal to it.

So it has become popular for the church to operate more like a business or industry than merely an assembly of like-minded believers. Believers everywhere are urged to find a church somewhere near them and join, a.k.a. become a member, just for the sake of it, as though it were some commandment of God.

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Now what makes this very easy to teach and push on Christians today is largely due to the social dynamics of our current society, which can be described as highly populated, low-trust, isolated, and disassociated. Believers are less likely to discover each other and fellowship through community because many of us live in populated cities where most people generally don’t know each other and don’t interact on a daily basis, so we don’t know who’s who. That makes networking a prime option for finding others who share similar lifestyle or belief. However, what church networking often lacks is the opportunities for people to freely and naturally get to know each other more intimately, and thus leaves “fellowship” reduced to superficial contact. When and if people don’t share experiences or contact of any depth outside of the church building, they do not grow friendships and relationships that are built on trust and that cross the barrier of stranger or acquaintance. One way to look at it is, whatever connection or relationship people have outside of the church is likely to be the same as inside of it.  

So this puts church as a networking business at an advantage because it provides a place for superficial contact between Christians without fulfilling the actual need for developing sincere and trusting friendships. It doesn’t claim nor even attempt to fulfill that need, but in spite of this it still asserts itself to be a necessity for Christians. Well really it is the authorities within the church that do this, not the church itself. This leads believers to think that they really are obligated to join church institutions because they lack stable fellowship with others outside of it, and without it would otherwise have minimal contact with Christians at all. (While that contact in churches is often shallow, it appears to satisfy the need.) This puts church as business in high demand, and so long as we live in highly populated, low-trust, isolated societies, this demand for “church membership” will remain high.

While not all churches or pastors have these sinister things in mind to do with the body of Christ, it is unfortunately common. So the people of God become as merchandise for those in power and authority within the church. The gathering of the saints becomes no longer free, but instead has the strings attached of business and wealth operations.

The question is, what does God think of this? God is not against ministers and preachers receiving support for their work by the church, but according to His word, He is against lying and dishonesty, manipulation and greed. He does not want His house (the body of believers) to become a house of merchandise where money and exchange is a higher priority than truth, sincere worship, love, and genuine fellowship.

 

Matthew 21:12-13

“And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”

 

John 2:13-16

“And the Jews’ Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when He had made a scourge of small cords, He drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.”

 

In this scenario where Jesus saw people buying and selling in the temple, they were directly exchanging products and money. It’s likely they were not honest or fair transactions as well because Christ told the moneychangers’ that they had made the house of God a den of thieves. This angered the Lord to a degree that, according to our knowledge, not many other things did.

Our situation today is not the same as back then, but there are notable similarities. While oftentimes there are no products being sold in churches, there is a different transaction occurring. Church services are considered free, but by twisting God’s word and through the use of guilt many are able to coerce believers into giving them money as a donation, especially when they may not otherwise have done so. Yet in essence, it becomes more like a fee. Covertly insisting that Christians are obliged to pay up money just by attending church to hear a message or fellowship is absurd. By that I am referring to regular weekly attendance, but another big part of this has to do with the idea that one’s good duty as a Christian is to become a member of a church by signing a contract agreement which includes financial obligations, as if they were paying for a service. Whether or not it’s acceptable to have this feature in the church at all is debatable, but what is for certain is this: dishonestly handling the word of God to persuade believers into thinking they must or really should become a “church member” with financial obligations is entirely unbiblical. If they openly teach this on the basis of their own opinion that is one thing, but some don’t stop there—they run to God’s word to make their opinion into “fact.” Because of this very issue there are many who have been turned away from the church tradition altogether.

The church at large has become a den of thieves. It has become a house of merchandise where the merchandise is the people themselves. They’ve become a source of currency. Their energy, attention, loyalty, admiration and money are all valuable resources to the religious leaders.

In order for each church institution to maintain themselves, they must compete each other for members (their source of income) and that incentivizes them to treat their operations as a business. A business must compete with others within its same industry in order to make enough money to sustain itself. So the church then finds ways to appeal to people or even manipulate them to get what they need—that is, becoming servants of men and mammon instead of God. The need of money takes precedent over the need to preach the raw truth because preaching the raw truth is not a very good business endeavor. Pleasing God means that one will not always please man, and for that it cannot or should not be made a primary source of money. Or at the very least, it should not be relied on the same way that one relies on a regular job for provision.

So that brings the question, is God as angry with this church-business system today as Jesus was with the people buying and selling in the temple? Is there any equivalency?

We know that the assembling of the saints is supposed to be a time of edifying, prayer, love, and growth. When that is interrupted by the greed of money and manmade religious traditions, it is turned upside down and becomes confused, chaotic, and even damaging instead of edifying. We also know that what the Israelites commonly did in the temple was similar to what I just described about the gathering of the saints, as Jesus said it is written that the house of God shall be called a house of prayer. That is, intimate relationship building with the Father. That’s what it was about in the temple. To taint the temple with financial corruption was angering to Him, so this is likely also the case with many churches today which taint the fellowship of saints with the same corruption.