"Forgive, and you will be forgiven" is a principle known long before Christ came. But in our fallen world it is usually taken to mean mutual indulgence: close your eyes to my sins, and I will close mine to yours, and we will not spoil each other's mood with mutual reproaches and claims. Of course, such an arrangement usually works only as long as the interests of one of the parties are not seriously affected, but quite often it still helps preserve decency and the appearance of normal relations. In everyday life, this is often what is called "forgiving your neighbor his sins."

But Jesus undoubtedly means something else: for He was never tolerant of any sin, although He always forgave the repentant sinner. He plainly proceeds from the fact that we are all sinners, and each of us needs, on the threshold of the Kingdom, to be forgiven those sins of which we repent and for which we grieve. But then we have no moral right to demand an accounting from others: either we begin to reckon up sins, and then there can be no question of the Kingdom, or we allow ourselves to be judged and cleansed from sin by the One who alone can do this; then the road into the Kingdom is open to us. The choice is ours.

According to the apostle James, the tongue "grows" straight out of the heart. It "takes out" of the heart everything stored there, and by this either sanctifies or defiles everything around it. And this is so usual for us: to use one and the same mechanism of speech for prayer and cursing, for declaring love and for deceit. In this way we reveal to ourselves and to everyone around us our double-mindedness, our inner filth. James rebukes us: this ought not to be so. At the same time, he also says that none of us can tame his own tongue by himself. What, then, does he offer us? This: "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you" (James 4:10). We must humbly let Him into our hearts, and then our filth will be cleaned out from there, and only blessing will come from our mouths.

Those who came to trade in the temple had no intention of defiling it. They were quite devout people who had put up for sale what pilgrims needed for the rites. The transformation of God's house into a den of robbers happened unnoticed, contrary to the conscious will of those gathered there, as everyday practical concerns accumulated like dust and covered over the very thing for which the temple exists.

When we come to God with our everyday needs, we are not committing a sin, for He Himself invited us to ask for them. But when we come to the temple only with practical needs, forgetting the selflessness of our relationship with God, we risk becoming those same "practical people" who made the temple a place of commercial deals.