Jesus First

The story of Jesus cleansing the temple is one of the most dangerous to get wrong. If you misunderstand what's going on in the story, you can easily slide off the rails into wildly incorrect thinking.
No, the story isn't an argument for violent masculinity. It's not an argument for why you sometimes need to break some rules and maybe break some noses. It's not even an argument for why churches shouldn't sell coffee in the lobby!
The story of Jesus cleansing the temple is way different, and way better.

The Kingdom of Jesus isn't based on the same principles we find at work in the world around us. The world around us demands fairness (sometimes), but the Kingdom of Jesus doesn't hold fairness as a virtue. The Kingdom and the King are better than that, better than fair.
The virtue of the Kingdom isn't fairness, it's generosity, otherwise known as grace.

The Kingdom of Jesus operates on principles exactly the opposite of what we would expect, exactly the opposite of what we would want. In the Kingdom of Jesus, you gain by giving. You profit from loss. In this kingdom, you get ahead by serving. The last will be first.

Matthew 18 is rarely understood because people tend to chop it up into little bits and miss the big picture. However, this is not a chapter about spiritual warfare and personal conflict and how many people it takes for Jesus to be present in a prayer meeting.
This is a chapter about one thing: the call upon Christians to be agents of restoration in the name of our king.

Jesus used miracle power to pay a tax? Even though he didn't need to? All because he didn't want to offend someone?
That's a side of Jesus people don't talk much about but perhaps we need to remember.