Biblia Files (part 4) - Holy Hyperlinks

Wikipedia/Christ driving the Traders from the Temple

For bloggers, hyperlinks are our friends.  They can link the reader to another page with more information about a key phrase or give a reference for a point made.

Before the internet and electronic documents, books had a way of doing that.  They were called footnotes and end-notes.  Not only that, this technique was and is still used in the spoken word. In the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln had made reference to the proposition that all men are created equal - a spoken "hyperlink" to the Declaration of Independence.

Jesus used this technique, too.

And as we are in the season of Lent, here is a great example of one of these Holy Hyperlinks that Jesus used in throwing out the money changers in the Temple.

¹² Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. 
He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.
¹³ “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’^[a] 
but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’^[b]”

Matthew 21:12-13 (NIV)

Below is the clip, dramatizing the scene:

(reference:  http://youtu.be/Ak3kXsx-i2U)

Let's take a look at these phrases Jesus cited:

‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’[a] ...

The reference [a] is a link to Isaiah 56:1-8.  These verses speak of including the foreigners - the Gentiles - in worship of the one God in the Holy Temple.

 ‘a den of robbers.’[b]

The reference [b]  is a link to Jeremiah 7:1-29.  These verses speak of a call for reform in a religion that was "breaking bad" as noted among many things for its oppression of foreigners.

So in two short phrases, Jesus said much to those who understood the writings of the prophets in the Old Testament.

* Smart Jesus. *

And seeing this example gives me pause to see Scripture in a new way - it's Holy Hyperlinks - which fill in so much more to tell the rest of the story.

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Recent posts in this series:

Biblia Files (part 1) - Thru the Bible (2013)

Biblia Files (part 2) - What is the Bible Basically About? (2013)

Biblia Files (part 3) - Gideon - weakness, warts and all (2013)

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Photo from:  Wikipedia/Christ driving the Traders from the Temple