Haggai

The Challenge of Haggai

• Our choices matter.
• The obedience of God’s people is part of how God works in the world.
• This should motivate humility and action.

Haggai’s ministry was to call the people to finish the Temple. This was taken place after the Babylonian Exile to New Jerusalem. (see 2 Kings 24-25)

1: 1-15 Haggai claims that the people are putting their houses before the House of the Lord and putting themselves above God. He points out that this could be the reason their harvest is low and they aren’t as blessed as they one were. So they decided to rebuild the temple.

2: 1-9 Elders who remember Solomon’s temple compare this new one to the old. Haggai addresses these shattered expectations and and remind them of the promise of God’s future kingdom.

2: 10-19 Two months later, Haggai addresses the call to convent faithfulness.

Impurity= Injustice, apathy

Obedience = Blessing

Unfaithfulness = Ruin

Only true convent faithfulness will lead to the coming of God’s kingdom and blessing.

2: 20-23 The future hope of God’s kingdom could be in the hands of Zerubabbel who is from the line of David.