Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

God’s folly

¹⁸ The word of the cross, you see, is madness to people who are being destroyed. But to us—those who are being saved—it is God’s power. ¹⁹ This is what the Bible says, after all:

²⁰ Where is the wise person? Where is the educated person? Where is the debater of this present age? Don’t you see that God has turned the world’s wisdom into folly? ²¹ This is how it’s happened: in God’s wisdom, the world didn’t know God through wisdom, so it gave God pleasure, through the folly of our proclamation, to save those who believe. ²² Jews look for signs, you see, and Greeks search for wisdom; ²³ but we announce the crucified Messiah, a scandal to Jews and folly to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, the Messiah—God’s power and God’s wisdom. ²⁵ God’s folly is wiser than humans, you see, and God’s weakness is stronger than humans.

Jesus in the Temple

¹³ It was nearly time for the Judaean Passover, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

¹⁴ In the Temple he found people selling cows, sheep and doves, and the money-changers sitting there. ¹⁵ He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the Temple—sheep, cows and all. He spilt the money-changers’ coins onto the ground, and knocked over their tables.

¹⁶ “Take these things away!” he said to the people selling doves. “You mustn’t turn my father’s house into a market!”

¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, “The zeal of your house has eaten me up.”

¹⁸ The Judaeans had this response for him. “What sign are you going to show us,” they said, “to explain why you’re doing this?”

¹⁹ “Destroy this Temple,” replied Jesus, “and I’ll raise it up in three days.”

²⁰ “It’s taken forty-six years to build this Temple,” responded the Judaeans, “and are you going to raise it up in three days?” ²¹ But he was speaking about the “temple” of his body. ²² So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Bible and the word which Jesus had spoken.