The Lord speaks to and through Haggai to encourage the
people to rebuild the temple. The
initial word speaks to the current situation, they sow much and reap little,
they are working hard to build their own kingdoms and houses and have allowed
the Lord’s house to lie in ruins. The
reason their work is futile is that they have put second things first, they
have set their own prosperity and glory above His. In a material sense what they are doing is
perfectly reasonable, as they prosper they will be more able to provide for the
rebuilding of the temple. First, they
want to get established in the land and then see to the temple as they have
means. The Lord says that the temple
needs to come first, that He may inhabit the Land and the promise is that He is
with them, the same promise as the Great Commission. As they begin the work, apparently there was
discouragement, that the current situation was as nothing the eyes of the
people. We saw that in the reading from
Ezra as the older men wept over the pitiable little construction as they
remembered the former glory. The Lord
promises the workers, however, that the glory of the temple they are working on
will surpass the former. All because He
is and will be with them.
The question, “Who is my neighbor?” is intended, Luke tells
us, to justify the questioner. If we
limit the class of people we think of as neighbor, we can justify ourselves
pretty easily. I can love those who are
loveable and who love me in return. The
parable of the Good Samaritan doesn’t tell us who this man is who is beaten and
lying on the side of the road. We don’t
know if he is a Jew, Samaritan, or Gentile.
We do know who doesn’t act as neighbor to the man, a Levite and a
priest. Jesus answers the question
obliquely by asking His own question at the end of the story, “Which of these
three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the
robbers?” He doesn’t define who the
man’s neighbor is other than to imply that my neighbor is anyone who needs
me. He also defines what it means to be
a neighbor in saying, “…go, and do likewise,” in response to the man’s response
to who was the neighbor, “The one who showed him mercy.” Showing mercy is an active, costly thing.
Apollos knew the way of the Lord, he knew the truth about
Jesus as Messiah. He preached powerfully
in Ephesus and yet there was something missing in his knowledge, he knew only
the baptism of John. That baptism was for repentance in preparation for a
greater baptism, a baptism of which John himself spoke, a baptism of the Holy
Spirit and of fire. Priscilla and
Aquila, whom Paul had first met in Corinth and who had traveled with him to
Ephesus where he stayed only briefly with the hope of returning, took Apollos
aside and explained to him about the Holy Spirit. When Paul returned to Ephesus, he met some of
those who had apparently been converted under Apollos and immediately
recognizes that something is missing in these disciples, namely the Holy
Spirit. There is something greater than
John’s baptism, the work of the Holy Spirit.
Do we grieve the work of the Spirit in our lives by failing to ask for
Him to be more active in our lives?
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