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.

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.

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.

Modern churches have nothing to do with Jesus.

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

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.

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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.

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

Well since the bible is badly written fiction, cobbled together from dozens of books written over hundreds of years, based off other stories from hundreds of years before that period… Does it matter at all?

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.

There are a lot of good words in the good book but if you look around at most of the Christian church-goers they are golden-calf people.

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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.