365 Reflections

In chapter 2, Haggai asks the Priests a question from the Lord regarding ceremonial purity. The questions are intentional to draw out the truth that contact from holy objects to defiled cannot make them clean, while contact from defiled objects to clean objects DOES make them defiled.  Haggai 2:10–13 (ESV) On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, 11 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: Ask the priests about the law: 12 ‘If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?’ ” The priests answered and said, “No.” 13 Then Haggai said, “If someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?” The priests answered and said, “It does become unclean.” Haggai applies this principle to the nation’s spiritual condition. He concludes that the people and their nation stand defi...

We can easily get stuck in the past. That was one of the problems with Israel's leaders who returned from exile to rebuild the nation, starting with the Temple. The destruction of the former things left them heartsick over what was lost, rather than focused on what God would restore to them. And into this atmosphere, the Lord speaks through Haggai.  Haggai 2:1–3 (ESV)  In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet: 2 “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, 3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Sixty-six years had passed since the exile and destruction of Solomon's temple. Perhaps only a few people remembered the former things. But sometimes you just need a hint of the past to get stuck in the pres...

Spiritual stagnation can be just as dangerous as sin.  We come to the book of Haggai. God's people have returned to the land after their exile and settled in the city and land that had been taken from them. They have made life not only bearable but quite prosperous. The work to rebuild the Temple, begun years earlier, was, however , stalled. It seemed everyone was caught up in their own well-maintained domicile and neglected the house of prayer where they met with the Lord. If the spiritual problem of Israel before the exile was idolatry and injustice, the spiritual problem after it was apathy and low interest in the very thing that made them special - the presence of God among them.  Into this situation, the prophet speaks: Haggai 1:1–4 (ESV) In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozad...