2008 Shepherd’s Conference - Session #3, John MacArthur

For our third session today, Dr. MacArthur spoke on the impending doom of Judaism prophesied in Luke 20 & 21, the destruction of the Temple. The Temple was everything Judaism stood for. He addressed this by asking two questions; What happened to Judaism to get it this way? What kind of religion does Christ seek to destroy?

When Jesus made His statements about the temple being utterly destroyed, they were His last public statements. He was at the end of His public ministry and once He left the Temple, He would not return until He returned in glory. His final public words before h He was tried and crucified were, "Beware the Scribes and Pharisees." He uses them to warn people about false religious leaders. Today, the prevailing attitude is, "We should have a 'conversation' with leaders of other religions. We should look for some common ground." Jesus never did any of that. He constantly confronted them on their sin! He openly and repeatedly condemns them for bad theology and bad practice of their theology.

MacArthur then went on to show that the story of the widow and her two mites is not a story about giving everything. It is a story about a religion that had structured itself entirely around the concept that you could pay for your redemption by putting money in the treasury of the Temple. The woman was using her last remaining money to procure a blessing from the Temple priests (and God). There is no indication in the passage of her attitude, her motivation of the results of her donation. There is no indication in the text that Jesus loved her or blessed her for her donation. There's no teaching in the passage that we should follow her example. As a matter of fact, the story about the woman comes right in the middle of Jesus' denunciation of the Temple practices and the ministry of the Scribes and Pharisees who were taking advantage of widows. Jesus saw the rich putting their coins in and then saw the woman putting her coins in and said, "She gave more than the rest." Not as a commendation of the widow but as an indictment of the Priests! His intent as to show them that the rich could afford to do this but the poor widow could not.

Jesus was really implying that the system the Sanhedrin had set up was abusing and taking advantage of the poor. As a result, the Temple will be destroyed and there will be left, "not one stone upon another" which is precisely what occurred in 70 AD. This was not a theological statement but a statement made on the effects of bad theology on the people of God.

MacArthur concluded with an interesting statistic. The largest group of people who financially support today's prosperity ministries are older, single women.