Neville Goddard on Luke 19:45-46 - Mystical Bible Interpretation

Read Luke 19 in context

Scripture Focus

45And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought;

46Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.

Luke 19:45-46

Biblical Context

Jesus enters the temple, casts out those who sell and buy, declaring his house a house of prayer. He warns that worship has been turned into a den of thieves.

Neville's Inner Vision

Viewed through the I AM within, the temple is your living consciousness, the sanctuary of awareness where ideas and feelings rise and fall. The scene in Luke shows a severe act of cleansing, not to punish, but to wake the inner temple to its true function: prayer. The merchants are mistaken thoughts and attachments that have crowded the sanctuary with external means of approval, money, status, and habit. When Jesus says 'My house is the house of prayer,' he points to the fact that true worship is inward attention—attention directed by imagination and belief, not by outward ritual. To cast out the sellers is to revise your inner dialogue, to refuse to bargain away your awareness with images of fear, need, or possession. The den of thieves becomes a metaphor for the mind cluttered with petty exchanges: I will be whole if I accumulate this thing; I will be safe if I perform that ritual. The temple is restored when you return to silent, expectant awareness and treat it as sacred space. Your creative power is prayer; your attention is the altar; your assumed state becomes reality.

Practice This Now

Imaginative act: In the next moment, close your eyes and declare, 'This inner temple is the house of prayer; I am the I AM.' Then sit in quiet, feeling the assurance of wholeness as if it already is.