… and a freak tornado destroys their church. (Apparently, the tornado passed through downtown Minneapolis, right as they were beginning their conference).
To which the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s Rev. Steven Loy, who was helping oversee the convention, remarked, I kid you not, “We trust that the weather is not a commentary on our work.”
“At this the Jews answered and said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.'” (John 2:18-19). G.R. Beasley-Murray, in his commentary on the Gospel of John for Vol. 36 of the Word Biblical Commentary, notes:
“In its context, ‘destroy this temple’ does not convey a challenge to the Jewish leaders to tear down the stones of the temple; more plausibly it is an ironical call for them to carry on their behavior to its limit, which will end in the destruction of the temple of which they are guardians.”
But no doubt, they didn’t see any relationship between their destruction of Jesus’ Body (the Temple of the Lord) in c. 32 A.D. with the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., either.
Kudos to AMP for being on top of yet another story, and correcting the AP account.