Monday Bible Story for Children

Jesus was going to spend the next few days in church, the Temple. At some point, Monday or Tuesday, it was early in the morning as he went back into town, headed for the Temple. He was hungry.

He saw a fig tree and walked over to it to get a bite. We don't eat many figs, these days, unless they are in a fig newton. But they are good. Anyway, when he got to the tree, he saw that it didn't have any fruit on it. Just a bunch of leaves. You can't eat fig leaves. So Jesus just told that tree that it would never have fruit again, and it withered up and died! The disciples were amazed by that one. They had seen him bring dead people to life, but not kill anything. When they asked him how he did it, he told them that it was just a little faith. He said that if we believed, and asked for something in prayer, that we would receive it. If we told a mountain to jump in the sea, it would jump in the sea!


So Monday Jesus goes to the Temple. Remember that there were people selling stuff for sacrifices there? There were also people exchanging the local money for the foreign money. They were all making a huge profit in the church. Jesus saw this and was mad. He said that they were turning his house of prayer into a den of robbers. He turned over their tables and kicked them out of there! This made them mad. Not only them, but the preachers (chief priests) at the Temple, too. They were probably making a commission from the people selling stuff.


Jesus stayed in the Temple, and made the preachers even more mad. Jesus started healing people. People that were blind, he made see. People that were cripple, he made them walk. This made the preachers look bad, because they weren't doing that stuff. Then these kids started running (in the church, you KNOW preachers hate that) and shouting (ditto) "Hosanna to the Son of David!" Then the preachers went to Jesus and said, "Do you hear what those kids are yelling?" They were hoping he would say, "Kids, I'm just Jesus, Ya'll be quiet in this church!" But he didn't. He threw a scripture at them. He did that all the time. He said, "Yes, have you never read, 'From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise'?" He had 'em stumped.

He was tired, so he left to go to a town called Bethany to spend the night.

-Copyright 2000 by Gene Powell -