The Chosen + BibleProject | Season 5 Reading PlanSample

A Whip of Justice?
When Jesus flips tables and cracks a whip at the temple, it’s a prophetic act meant to expose corruption and injustice in Israel’s temple system—especially the exclusion of non-Jewish people (the “others”).
To grasp the deeper meaning of the scene you just watched from The Chosen, it’s helpful to revisit God’s call to Abraham (Gen. 12:2-3). God promises to bless Abraham so that Abraham’s family will bless all nations. That’s biblical justice—God’s blessing of life and goodness for all people.
Centuries after Abraham’s call, the prophet Jeremiah stood in the shadow of Jerusalem’s temple to warn God’s people about corruption happening there and throughout their community, especially when people posturing as “righteous” are taking advantage of the poor and showing contempt toward widows and orphans. Jeremiah said the temple had become a “den of robbers” (Jer. 7:11).
So Jesus cracks a whip where the prophet Jeremiah stood centuries earlier, again saying that the temple has become a “den of robbers” (see Matt. 21:13; Luke 19:46). Like Jeremiah, Jesus is calling people to reject injustice and return to God’s way of love and blessing for all.
In Jesus’ day, the temple’s outer space was the Court of the Gentiles—designated for non-Jews to meet with God through prayer and worship. But money changers and livestock vendors had overtaken the sacred space for commercial purposes and pushed Gentiles out, some even preferring it as a shortcut (see Mark 11:16).
With hundreds of thousands of people traveling from all over the world to Jerusalem for the Passover festival, logistics were complex. Selling blemish-free sacrificial animals and exchanging foreign currency served a real need. But the temple’s Court of the Gentiles needed to be kept holy and set aside to welcome all nations to receive God’s blessing, fulfilling God’s words in Isaiah 56:7 that the temple should be “a house of prayer for all nations” (Isa. 56:7).
Jesus’ act of protest exposes how deeply the system had strayed from its mission. This isn’t about rules; it’s about God’s heart for justice and the inclusion of all people.
As followers of Jesus, we are called to that same kind of justice, which is rooted not in retribution or exclusion, but in radical love and blessing for all people—especially those the world tends to leave out.

Reflection Questions
How do you most frequently hear “justice” described, and how does that compare or contrast with the kind of justice described in the BibleProject video and the Scripture passages it refers to?

Why do you think the temple leaders and religious elite feel threatened by Jesus, while at the same time, everyone else seems to be stoked about Jesus and—as Mark writes in his gospel account—are “amazed by his teaching” (Mark 11:18)?