No Stupid Questions

Specifically, he flipped the tables of money lenders and people selling stuff. Donating a tithe has been a part of Abrahamic religion since the Old Testament.

They had turned the church into a marketplace. So if you're in it just for the money then yeah you're a problem.

Jesus actually sent out the disciples to teach without any money and expected them to live on the generosity of the people they taught so that's where the collection plate likely originates from.

Gonna eliminate some strawmen here. For a start, in the vast majority of Christian churches, the collection plate is a modest charitable giving. It is not typically used to fund the mill/billionaire "pastors" that you see on the media all of the time. Most pastors aren't like that. Most Churches seem to take finances seriously. The ones I have been a part of are very transparent with their finances- some publish their finances to everyone, some publish it to members. My mum is a Baptist and she says she knows how much her pastor is paid, and the congregation sets that wage in a democratic manner. In fact, voting on finances is usually what they do in members meetings. In Episcopal churches, from what I'm aware, finances are authorised for dispensation by the select vestry - who are essentially voting members in church affairs. Some churches I regularly attend do struggle for finances, as when Christianity was more culturally participated in, members would have generated enough money to maintain large beautiful buildings. Now they are aging, and churches don't have that money to throw around.

The collection plate being passed around is actually supposed to be a method of anonymous donation. It is very much frowned upon to even look at how people handle it, most people don't even look to take it.

Onto scripture:

Jesus said:

Matthew 6:1-4

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

So giving is encouraged, but to be done secretly.

2 Corinthians 9:7

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

I'd argue this is abolishing the 10% rule.

There is a case in the Acts of the Apostles where two people lie to the Church, and pretend to donate all of the proceeds from selling their land to the Church and drop dead. This wasn't because they didn't give it all, it's because they publicly gave in front of many others as a show of holiness. After they dropped dead, the church wised up (Christians generally accept that they still went to heaven, but the act of them dying physically was to "purify" the church and to scare them out of deceit)

Acts 5:1-11

But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him. After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.” And she said, “Yes, for so much.” But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.

Now, let's address the table flipping incident:

People were essentially overcharging and commercialising sacrifices. Some speculate that they weren't letting people bring their own sacrifice, instead they had to buy it in the temple court. Essentially it was a "pay to enter" fee. Not like modern day tithing.

And finally - those megachurch millionaire/billionaires? Those "ministers" who only care about money?

Matthew 7:22-23

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

1 Timothy 6:10

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

Luke 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."

It's a question of: what are they doing with the money from the collection plate? Are they using it to maintain the church building, paying the people working for the church a (modest) salary and providing support for those in need? That's not what Jesus had a problem with, he would be for that. Are they telling people "God only loves you if you buy X" and using the money to get rich? That's what Jesus had a problem with. So it's not collecting money that's the problem, it's how it's done and what is done with the collected money.

The bible is long and contradictory. its a bit like palm reading, it can say whatever you want it to say.

If someone asks, "What would Jesus do?" Remember that flipping tables and whipping a bitch are viable options.

ITT- a lot of people who are very confidently wrong even about basic facts about this.

Jesus flipping tables wasn't aimed at the priests and church authorities, but at people who were based in the outer area of the temple selling supplies to make sacrifices and offerings prescribed in Jewish law (see the book of Leviticus for more descriptions of these sacrifices). Jewish law at the time required a lot of animal sacrifices and monetary offerings at the Temple, and Jesus didn't seem to have any issues with these- after all, they were a core part of the religion at the time and again, the Torah explicitly states that priests are supposed to live off of Temple offerings (note that in this passage the priestly class are referred to as "Sons of Aaron"). So it would have been odd for Jesus, as someone who at least according to the Bible was very knowledgeable about scripture and Jewish law, would have been surprised at that aspect.

What he was mad about was the commerce occurring around this system. The Gospel descriptions of this event discuss "moneychangers" and people selling doves. These are people who exchanged Roman currency for traditional Jewish currency (which is what ancient monetary offerings were denominated in) and sold animals (and based on other writings in the Torah, probably spiced cakes as well) that could be sacrificed in the Temple on the purchaser's behalf. As for why this made Jesus mad, that is up for debate. The obvious answer is that it represents greed and people making money off religion, but the large amount of sacrifices required by Jewish law at the time really encouraged this behavior just from a practical standpoint. Myself I think he would have been completely fine with it had it been happening right outside the Temple instead, but the Temple was considered an especially holy place, where God's presence literally descended down to Earth to be with mankind in the innermost portion, which each concentric ring acting as a sort of "air lock" for ritual impurity.

So the problem was not that the priests were making money from religion (again, this was required by Jewish law at the time) but that these other people were hanging out in the Temple treating it as a marketplace rather than as an exceptionally holy and highly ritualized space. Understanding this is kind of difficult for modern people because we don't really treat religion the same as people did back then, and especially from a Christian standpoint we tend to view religion as a matter of personal belief and not impurity that occurs as a natural consequence of things that happen and that must be cleansed before encounters with the divine.

They weren't priests collecting for the church.

They were loan sharks operating out of the church.

Modern churches have nothing to do with Jesus.

I suspect that piece of the bible is carefully ignored in the greediest churches. It's not like the faithful read the fucking thing anyway

Jesus was a dirty homeless activist with no love for the institutions of his time. Would genuinely fit in better in under any overpass than in any church. Cool dude.

It to help the christian missionaries across the world, but not the neighbour sleeping on a mattress on their porch.

Its to help replace the church carpets that the pastor doesn't like, not help the homeless community who is living under the bridge in the city.

I may be a biased, unhappy, ex-church goer, but that's what I saw

Pssst....modern Christians aren't actually Christian.

Jesus wouldn't gripe the practice of tithing so much as what the modern church does (or mainly doesn't do) with the money. Obviously if that money was spent helping people he would be cool with it.

There's even a bit in the bible where he say the poor woman who tithed the 1 penny she could spare was giving more than the rich people who gave much more.

Religion is the largest scam against humanity.

He flipped the table basically because they were doing business out of a church.

It can be even funnier. I'm an atheist, but I go to church regularly with my wife. Some weeks ago the priest read that part of the bible - and everyone turned their head, looking at the stands in the back of the church where they were going to sell fair trade products later that day.

If you think your church is doing good work, you give.

The church I grew up in closed for lack of funds. The preacher never lived large, they weren't taking more than people wanted to give.

I would never give money to a mega church, but I have donated to UU churches as an adult.

Assume that this is an apocalyptic Jew before rabbinic judaeism. That should frame thinks a bit better. The problem, at least as I understand it, is people doing commerce, particularly for a profit, in a sacred space. I do t think the money was the problem in and of itself, but rather the execution and motive. In another story, biblical Jesus tells someone of wealth and power that what he needs to do is give all of that up and he was quite miffed (in a very tldr telling)

How do they explain? Some variation on God spoke to me.

Naw.

For context at this time the Jewish people were under strict roman rule and oppression, treated as second class citizens. And a lot of Jewish folks had stopped giving a fuck about respecting their own culture/religion.

Jesus shows up to this huge, extremely sanctious, temple. It's not just any temple, its one of THE temples for Jewish worship.

Inside he finds that the romans+Jewish merchants have pretty much turned it into an animal pen + marketplace. It's filthy, there's animals shitting all over, there's people doing business, people are being extremely disrespectful.

So yeah Jesus goes apeshit and starts flipping tables, chasing ppl out of the temple, whipping people and animals, basically being like "all you assholes gtfo how dare you"

It's less about the money stuff and more about the donkeys actively shitting on the floor and ppl spitting on the temple.

Contextually its likely people were doing stuff like pissing on the wall (no bathroom in a makeshit marketplace, what do you think would happen), graffiti'ing, spitting, throwing garbage on the floor, so on and so on.

Now, originally, this business made sense. Specifically, pilgrims traveling a long distance needed to stop for some key stuff on arrival.

Pilgrims needed animals and approved currency for sacrifices, which they'd do at the temple, so setting up to do that stuff right at the temple made sense.

But what happened is a simple lil currency exchange + buy a sacrifice stall exploded to be a whole marketplace as seedier and more sus ppl moved in, and soon the original point was lost.

It probably originally just started as one guy just exchanging coins and selling goats/chickens outside the temple as a legit business.

As further insult/context, consider the fact that once they moved this process to be in the temple, it meant they were controlling people's access to worship.

Effectively it became a state of "you have to pay to pray" at the temple, and not a tithe, but more like literally having to pay a bunch of money to even get the right coins, the approved animals, etc.

You couldn't bring your own stuff now.

You know how movie theaters wouldn't let you bring in your own food, and would charge you an arm and a leg for anything? Yeah, think of it like that.

Acts 4 along mark 10 are pretty clear that Christians are supposed to give it all and live in a community where "as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto each, according as any one had need."

This is also supported by the teachings that literally states rich people won't go to heaven (unless they give it away).

So Jesus and early christians were all about living in a commune.

Now, most modern churches come from a roman imperial implementation of an uprising religion at a time where different temple within polytheism were associated with concurring political factions leading to unstability. Christianity was authorized, then chosen as a state religion and accordingly structured. Things branched out from there, becoming a central part of international politics throughout the middle ages, then different flavors of christianity raising from protestanism (which remain globally a minority compared to catholiscism), but they are all structured towards their own goals rather than Jesus's teachings.

He called out the practice of killing animals for money, specifically calling the priests murderers during the event you reference. Not much of that spirit left in modern churches.

Cherry-picking The Bible is standard religious practice. Couldn't make money otherwise.

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