Haggai 1:7-9 - Consider your ways

1:7,8

In v 5 God called on the people to “consider your ways” in order to realise the failing of their present approach (ie seeking first their own needs, rather than the kingdom of God). Now He calls them to consider their ways  in terms of how to put things right, how to do the right thing. So God calls on them to go up to the hills and collect wood so that the temple, God’s house, could be built. This was so that the Lord could take pleasure in it and that He would be glorified. Now part of us may react, and the atheist almost certainly would react, against God’s desire to be glorified, thinking it was rather selfish and self-centered! But let’s look at this more closely. Let’s use my rough and ready definition of “glory”, which means moral excellence, significance and splendour. Who or what was the most important, the most significant, thing in life for the Israelites? They were acting as if getting their own needs was the most important thing, and they could best do this by their own efforts. The truth was that this was not working, and it is actually God who supplies all our needs. So only if they gave glory to God would life work out. And the same applies to you and me.

1:9

Their present ways were not working, but look at what it says “I blew it away”. It was not just that things were not working, God was actively frustrating their plans. We can think that if only politicians follow the correct policies and methods then things will work out, but if a nation is in abject rebellion against God it may be that God is actively frustrating the plans of a nation, and only when that nations repents will things start to work out. This is not to say that policies and methods don’t matter, they do, but our moral state matters as well. At present the West, including the UK, is a moral mess and the seeming inability of anything to work (eg Brexit?) is at least partly down to this. In Israel the people were focused purely on their own lives, not on God’s house.

Acts 16:1-3 - Timothy joins the band

16:1

We now learn how Paul met Timothy, the recipient of two of Paul’s pastoral letters. Timothy was the son of a Jewish mother and a Gentile father. One of the background features of Acts is the prominence of women in some of the narratives. We will see another example later in this chapter. If you read Paul’s letters you will also note this, Romans 16 being the prime example. The gospel gave importance to women. Timothy’s mother was a believer, we are not told if his father was, but it would seem that he was not.

16:2,3

Timothy was himself a believer and had a good reputation among the believers  at Lystra and Iconium. So Paul decided to take Timothy with him on his mission trips. Then we have a quite amazing incident in some ways, Paul has Timothy circumcised. And this after all the fuss over circumcision that we read about in the previous chapter. So why the apparent change? Why circumcision at all? Well as he was uncircumcised Timothy would not be regarded as a Jew, and they were going to be travelling through regions with significant numbers of Jews. So Paul did not want to put any unnecessary obstacle in the way of the Jews believing.This was a pragmatic decision, not a matter of salvation.

Haggai 1:3-6 - You have sown much, but harvested little

1:3,4

“Is it time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” The previous verse says “Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet”. He has just talked about the people saying the time is not right to build the house of the Lord, a very human reaction. We are now going to get a stinging rebuke from the Lord. This response did not come from the cleverness of Haggai, but from the mind of God. When it says “paneled houses” this can mean, and probably does mean, “roofed-in”. Ie they had repaired the roof, rather than that they had decorated their houses with some elaborate decor. So God’s question is “is it right that we patch up our own lives while God’s house is left a ruin?”

1:5,6

Now why is it essential to get God’s house in order when our lives need putting together? Or to put it another way, why should I give to God when my own finances need attention or are in such a mess? Indeed, not only why should I give to God, how can I possibly give to God when my own needs are so great? We are going to get part of the answer here, and part later on. The part given here is “consider your ways”. They had devoted efforts to getting their lives in order but they weren’t working! So why must we give proper attention to God? Because our lives are completely dependent upon Him. He created us in the first place, He created the universe in which we live, and we are completely and utterly dependent upon Him for every moment of our being. So it is foolish not to give proper attention to Him!

Acts 15:32-40 - Strengthening the churches

15:32

Judas and Silas, the two representatives from Jerusalem, were prophets. This was an important ministry within the early church. So they exercised their gift. Note that we are not told what they said, only that they “exhorted and strengthened” the believers. In one sense this is quite annoying, in fact there is very little information in the New Testament about what prophets said. But in another sense this is good. For one thing it demonstrates that what they “prophesied” was not regarded as scriptural. Cessationists sometimes seem to want to insist that all prophecy must be on a par with scripture, there is no Biblical support for such a view. We need more prophets today.

15:33-35

Judas and Silas had been welcomed in Antioch, and after some time were then sent back to Jerusalem. In some translations, such as ESV, NIV, you will not find a verse 34, in others,, eg NKJV you will, and it says that Silas decided to remain there. This was possibly added to explain how Silas came to be part of Paul’s group (see v40). Paul and Barnabas remained there teaching and preaching. Teaching is primarily to the church, preaching may have been to the church, but possibly also to the world.

15:36-40

After some time Paul wanted to go back to the churches they had planted to see how they were doing. A sharp disagreement arose over this, namely over whether John Mark should join them. Earlier Mark had left them and Paul thought that this ruled him out, Barnabas disagreed. In the end Paul and Barnabas went their separate ways and Paul took Silas instead, and went through Syria and Cilicia. This shows that we are not getting any sugar-coated picture of the early church. Even with the great apostle, disagreements arose. The church is Spirit led, but this does not make us immune from human disputes.

Haggai 1:1,2 - These people say ...

1:1

As mentioned in the introduction, with Haggai we get very precise dating, so much so that we know the fifteen week period in which he gave his messages. The message was given to Haggai and he had to pass it onto Zerubbabel the governor and Judah the high priest. If God gives you a word then it is give for a purpose, it is given to be acted upon. Sometimes it might be given to you for application in your own life, sometimes it might be given for you to give to other particular people, as here, and at other times it might be for a group of people. For us  “receiving a word” will normally be God opening our eyes to something in Scripture, or impressing some aspect of scripture upon us, and certainly nothing from God will ever contradict Scripture, but will be perfectly consistent with it. Whatever the case, the word of God is given to be acted upon.

1:2

“These people say the time has not yet come ..” This attitude was perfectly understandable, even reasonable by human standards. The country was a mess. It had been desolated by the Babylonians, with many people dragged off into exiles. Some had now returned. The natural reaction would be to get their own lives sorted out, to start to rebuild the economy, rebuilding the temple would have to wait. We can do the same in our own lives, we can do the same as churches. But, as we will see, this will not work.

Let’s consider the centrality of the temple for a moment. We often say that “the church is not a building”, yet here we see the emphasis on the physical temple. Yet in the New Testament emphasis is not put on a physical temple. In Hebrews the imagery is largely taken from the tabernacle. The temple is a shadow of what was to come, it is kind of a demonstration project. In 1 Cor 6 we read that we are temples of the Holy Spirit. We are central to the fulfillment of God’s plans on earth, what He will do He will do through His people. So we need to focus on rebuilding the desolated temple within us. We might say that we have other things we need to sort out first, and we can say this as individuals and as churches, but we are wrong. We need to “seek first the kingdom of heaven”, and then “all these things will be added unto us”. Conversely, if we seek ourselves first then God will actively work to frustrate our plans, as we will see later.

Acts 15:22-31 - It seemed good to the apostles

15:22,23

The decision having been made, it was implemented in an orderly and sensible manner. They sent some men from the Jerusalem church to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. This would demonstrate beyond doubt that the decision did indeed have the full backing of the apostles in Jerusalem, and they need pay no attention to any future Judaisers. Silas, one of the men chosen, would become a future companion of Paul. They also sent a letter, so there was no room for doubt in the decision that had been made.

So we see that in this whole matter there is the work of the Holy Spirit, there is the wisdom of godly men, and there is proper administration. If we miss any one of these elements then we are heading for trouble.

15:24-29

The letter began by recognising the concerns of the Antioch church, and the disturbing effect that it had had. It then explained that men from Jerusalem had been sent along with Paul and Barnabas. These men had risked their lives for Christ. So they were men of genuine faith, not armchair believers. The letter then outlined the decision of the council.

15:30,31

So the outcome of the council was communicated to the believers in Antioch. This news brought great rejoicing. Why was this? Because the gospel had brought new life to the believers in Antioch, and this included Gentile believers. This new life had come as a result of faith in Jesus Christ, not as a result of any religious observance. So it meant that what they were doing was vindicated, and it meant that the work among the Gentiles could continue, and that there was unity between the Jerusalem church and the Antioch church.

Haggai - Introduction

The book of Haggai is very helpful as it gives very precise details of when Haggai gave his messages. Some of the prophets do this, others don’t. Given that God is in control of what goes into the Bible we can assume that if details are given then they are important in interpreting and understanding the prophecy. If they aren’t given it does not mean something is amiss, but that the details are not essential for understanding.

Haggai is known as “the prophet”. This is also the epithet he is given in Ezra 5:1 and Ezra 6:14. Haggai prophesied between 29 Aug 520 BC and 18 dec 520 BC, or rather the prophecies in this book occurred between those dates, a fifteen week period.

The situation is that some of the Israelites had returned from exile in Babylon. The economic situation was weak, for Israel was a defeated nation, and religion was in a mess. The temple had been destroyed. The key message is that they should get on with rebuilding the temple. Now there were many good reasons why other things should have priority, rebuilding their own lives for one! Today the church is in a mess in the West, we can find many excuses for just keeping things together. We can also find reasons why we must focus on our own lives and those of our families. In Haggai’s time God pointed out that their efforts to rebuild their own lives were proving futile, and it was God that was frustrating them! The same applies to us, we may find that our efforts to sort out our own lives and those of our families are just not working. In Israel’s case they needed to put their efforts into rebuilding the temple. In our case we need to put efforts into building the kingdom. When we do this we will encounter obstacles. The ones Israel encountered were twofold: the task seemed so great, even impossible; and their own sin. These are much the same ones as we encounter. God encourages them that in Him they will succeed.