Jesus uses the same imagery when confronting the money changers in the temple saying that the tax collectors and harlots would enter the kingdom before they would. The tax collectors only collect money in the flesh, but those who sold things in the temple had served mammon spiritually. The harlots had sinned in the flesh, but the Pharisees had sold themselves figuratively as temple prostitutes because they had brought their false god and religion into the temple. He is saying that they knowingly and willingly were rejecting God and replacing him with their own religion of greed.

The second half of Thomas's saying is missing, but it will likely show a similar word play that we may be able to discern from Matthew's saying.