By Kenneth B.E. Roxburgh, Ph.D.
Professor of Religion, Samford University
First Things First
Haggai 1:2–13
Haggai is one of those short little books toward the end of the Old Testament that gets overlooked by most Christians. It’s a short book — only 38 verses in all. Pastors usually preach on it when they are beginning a building project.
Buildings are a great resource but buildings don’t by themselves do ministry. Yet a building project is what is at the heart of this message from Haggai. Rebuilding the temple seems to be the answer to all of Judah’s troubles, at least according to Haggai.
Obedience to God takes priority. (2–8)
The people of Israel have been given the opportunity after 70 years of exile in Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple and the walls of the city. Haggai’s message came 18 years after the return of the Jewish people from exile.
The problem was that the returning exiles had been filled with enthusiasm when they returned to Jerusalem. They began some work on the temple but gave it up and concentrated on their own houses. The mantra going around the city seemed to be: The time has not yet come to build the Lord’s house. So they built their own homes — what Haggai described as paneled houses.
It wasn’t customary in Jerusalem for houses to be paneled and certainly not perhaps using the cedar wood Haggai refers to. The cedar wood was the very wood that had been brought down from the mountain ranges of the day in Tyre and Sidon where cedar trees grew. The timber had been bought and purchased and brought to Jerusalem to build the temple.
Not only had they deviated from the specific command that God had given to them to rebuild the temple, but they had actually employed the very wood that was meant for the temple to build their own houses. So the word of the Lord comes: Give careful thought. Just stop and think for a minute — what are you living for?
We lose out when we place ourselves ahead of God. (9–11)
Haggai takes time to set out, step by step, the consequences of putting our own will before the purposes and plans of God for our lives. We suffer. We lose out on His blessing.
Our spiritual lives shrivel up and instead of being fruitful we discover a “drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the soil produces, on human beings and animals, and on all their labors” (v. 11).
Haggai uses the past not to discourage these folks but to encourage them. He speaks of God as the Lord of Hosts — an archaic term which would be better read as “armies.” It is intended to speak of His power and ability to fulfill His promises toward His people.
God is with those who place Him first in their lives. (12–13)
On three occasions Haggai says “take courage.” Why? How? Because God says, “For I am with you. Just as I promised you when you came out of Egypt, I am with you — My Spirit abides among you. Do not fear.”
Putting God at the center, making space for God in our lives and in our communities is still something we need to work on.
Craig Gay in his book “The Way of the (Modern) World” suggests the essence of worldliness is not to be found in personal morality but rather to “go about our daily business in the world without giving much thought to God.”
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