Jesus Preaches In The Temple (19:47-21:38).
Having driven the traders out of the Temple in His prophetic zeal Jesus then revealed the greatness of His great courage by returning daily to that same Temple in order to teach the people. As the traders, who would quickly have returned, watched with baleful eyes, and the Temple police stood by alert for trouble, Jesus boldly entered the Temple again, and ignoring both, proceeded to address the crowds gathered there. Indeed the great crowds that gathered to Him would make it seem to the authorities as though He had almost taken over the Temple, apart from the Sanctuary itself.
And perhaps that was how He intended it to be seen. Having driven out the traders He has now taken possession of it in the name of the Lord, for its genuine purpose, that of proclaiming the word of God within it (a theme of Luke/Acts) and of prayer. In the coming months and years this will be one of its purposes until at length it will be finally rejected because it had rejected Him (see Luke 19:47; Luke 20:1; Luke 21:37-38; Luke 24:53; Acts 2:46; Acts 3:1; Acts 3:8; Acts 4:1; Acts 5:20-21; Acts 5:25; Acts 5:42). While it continued as the hub of the Jewish religion, it also became for a time the source from which light could go out from the Jews to the world (Isaiah 2:2-4).
But whereas the authorities wanted to arrest Him they did not dare make a move in public, because He was too popular. They were forced to recognise that any move against Him could only result in tumult, and that that would then bring down on them the wrath of their Roman overlords. Thus they turned to a new tactic, and got together to decide how they might discredit Him in the eyes of the people. They knew that if they could only do that, then they could take Him. This therefore resulted in a number of challenges which are found in what follows. These included the challenge as to His authority for behaving as He did (Luke 20:1-8), the challenge as to whether it was right to give tribute to Caesar (Luke 20:20-26), and the challenge concerning the truth of the resurrection (Luke 20:27-38).
In dealing with these Jesus not only showed them up as being hypocritical and incompetent, but went on to denounce them and their fellow leaders by means of a parable which demonstrated their connection with the villainy of those who in the past had persecuted those sent from God (Luke 20:9-18). Within this parable at the same time He revealed His own uniqueness as God's only Son. Then once their challenges were exhausted He riposted with a quotation from Scripture concerning His Messiahship (Luke 20:41-44), following it up with a further attack on the Scribes (Luke 20:45-47) and a contrasting of them with an impoverished widow whose godly giving aroused His admiration (Luke 21:1-4). This was then followed by His description to His disciples of the future destruction of the Temple, along with prophecies concerning the future, which ended up with the promise of His return in glory (Luke 21:5-36). And during all this period He continued teaching daily to the crowds in the Temple (Luke 21:37-38).
In all these episodes Luke was calling, at least to some extent, on Marcan material, but altered so as to suit the points that he was trying to get over, and in terms of other information received. This was, however done without altering their essential message. It all begins with an attack on His authority.