My house shall be called
a house of prayer.
Matthew 21:13
Under the Jewish system, in order to achieve forgiveness, you had to sacrifice an ox, a goat, a turtledove, or some other animal like a sheep. If you were a good Jew, traveling to the temple in Jerusalem from very far away, you'd rather carry cash across the desert than birds and goats. Therefore, moneychangers had an almost necessary role; they would change your cash into the proper animal for sacrifice.
Perhaps Jesus overturned their tables in Matthew 21 because many, most, or all of the moneychangers were cheating a few simple people who were making a few simple sacrifices.
Perhaps.
Maybe what he was really turning over was the system of worship in God's kingdom.
Jesus was in Jerusalem. He had about five days left to live. By the next Sunday, he would be resurrected and a new system of religion would be eternally ushered in. No longer would we need goats, turtledoves, and moneychangers. Jesus himself would be the sacrifice -- the Lamb of God who was taking away the sins of the world.
He was turning the tables. Indeed, he was turning religion upside down. With a once and for all times sacrifice being made by him, now our relationship with God came not through blood, but through prayer.
From now on, God's house -- and our lives -- were (and are) to be governed by prayer.
In Christ's Love,
a guy who'll sell you a sheep
(if you pay me enough),
but who would rather
sell you on prayer
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