NOTES:
1] JN places this incident well before the Palm Sunday events of 12:12+. There's no clear answer as to why.  2] Merchants sold animals & birds 'without blemish' for sacrifice, & changed secular money into 'temple money'. Church fund raising goes back a long way! 3] Some scholars believe 'the Jews' in much of the N.T. really means the 'Judeans', i.e. the southerners & their leaders. 4] JN, where others use 'miracle' uses 'sign' to show what the miracle signifies & Who lies behind it.

WARMING UP: Would we like to have been a 'fly on the wall' in the Temple that day?

TREASURES OLD & NEW: Identify God at work in anything this week?

ENTERING INTO THE STORY:

13-17    Are we as meticulous in our observance of church festivals / 'days of obligation' as Jesus was / as we might be? Is it just too difficult to 'get there' these days? If so, could we come up with some form of observance that is feasible for more people to attend? Or, is it more lack of interest than finding it difficult?
              Given that the Temple precincts were being misused, how well do we use / how much do we misuse our own church precincts? How many hours of how many days is our church building a) open, and, b) used? Could we find more constructive ways of using our building(s) in Jesus' service? Is there some sense in which they need to become a different kind of 'market-place'?
               Would Jesus be likely to 'take his rope' today to the multi-national corporations, global conglomerates, international banking cartels, & the like for 'ripping off the little people'? Isn't that issue at the heart of Jesus' complaint back then?
               Is there such a thing as misplaced zeal for 'God's house'?

18-22      Do we ever find ourself looking for miracles or signs today before we will really believe in God / Jesus?
               Why would it be important to us that Jesus was so confident of being raised from the dead before he entered into his Passion & Death? Do we ever think of Jesus' resurrection as an afterthought on God's part, a reward for what Jesus went through, rather than something that from eternity was part of 'the deal' of being Messiah? When we say in the Creed, 'On the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures', what does that actually mean? How did we come to believe in Jesus, his life, death, & resurrection?