Matthew 21

Matthew 21:12-13:
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,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”

Luigi Maria Epicoco

The expulsion of the sellers from the temple is one of those pages of the Gospel that clash a bit with our imagery of an always serene, peaceful, meek Jesus. Actually, those who know the meek know that they almost never get angry, but when they do get angry, it’s big trouble.
And Jesus has a very serious reason to get angry: the Temple, which represents humanity’s relationship with God, is full of commerce and empty of love.
To understand the concrete fallout of this in our lives we can consider an example. How would we judge a relationship based only on opportunism? Would we consider it love, or hypocrisy?
Jesus is denouncing the opportunism that can lurk even in our relationship with God. If faith becomes only an exchange of petitions and graces then it’s no longer faith, but only religion, and a pagan one at that. Only when we reestablish a true prayerful relationship with God, which is a gratuitous relationship of good, does our religion cease to be pagan and become Christian faith. -Father Luigi Maria Epicoco; Aletia; Careful: You might be treating God like a pagan 11.18.22

Charles L Allen

"The main reason for going to church is to pray. The fact is, prayer is the church's supreme business. Jesus said, "My house shall be called the house of prayer" (Matt 21:13). The most important part of the church is not the pulpit, not the choir loft, not the social hall, it is the altar. As the Bible tells about the building of the first churches, it is the altar that is emphasized. "And Noah built an altar unto the Lord" (Gen 8:20). "And there Abraham built an altar unto the Lord" (Gern 12:7). "And God said unto Jacob, Arise go up to Bethel...and make there an altar unto God" (Gen 35:1). "And Moses built an altar' (Exodus 17:15).. "
--Charles L Allen; When The Heart is Angry; 1955

Matthew 21:23:
“And when he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?

We must always remember that in Scripture, “by what authority do you do this thing?” is the devil’s question. Of course it would be child’s play to write a scenario in which a good and godly man was impelled to ask the question, but even with that cheerfully acknowledged, in Scripture it is the devil’s line:
“And when he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?” (Matt. 21:23).
This is because a certain kind of man always gravitates to the seats of power, and he always learns how to operate the levers under the desk, and one of the first things he learns is how to question the credentials of some disheveled and high-school drop-out of a prophet. The shot is that we need to have the “proper authority” to deal with such issues. The chaser is that we will ensure that the “wrong” kind of person never gets near the “proper authority.”
And all goes well until the Son of Savonarola shows up at the General Assembly and overturns a few tables in a meeting of the previously decorous credentials committee. -
-Douglas Wilson