My goal in this post is to walk through the book of Haggai and highlight its distinctive message within the Minor Prophets.

Haggai has two major movements: First, he speaks Yahweh’s word to a people who are more focused on their own stuff, their own houses, than God’s presence. The people listen to Haggai and respond with obedience, which leads to the second movement of the book: Haggai calls the people to stay faithful and work to build God’s house, trusting that God is with them.

As a Christian reading the book of Haggai, I hear Haggai’s call to build God’s house as a call to serve the people within the body of Christ, the church. Haggai calls the people to rebuild the temple because God’s presence was with them (1:13). In Haggai’s time, the temple was the place where God dwelled among his people. In the era in which we live, after Pentecost, God’s presence dwells in his people, the body of Christ, the church.

Haggai’s call is relevant to followers of Jesus: Prioritize serving the people in the church because this is where God’s presence dwells. Live and work with God’s presence in and for the church. Don’t give into the normal way of life in America, building your own houses and bank accounts and wealth and platform as the focus of your life.

Let’s walk through the book.

Chapter 1

In the first chapter, the prophet highlights the problem, the solution, and the call to rebuild God’s house.

The Problem

The setting of the book is after the exile. Some people from the kingdom of Judah have returned to the land, but they are not actively rebuilding the temple.

This people say it is not time; it’s not time to build the house of Yahweh. (Haggai 1:2)

Haggai calls the people to consider their lives and their experience of the world (1:5, 7). Are things working out well for them? No. They are living in futility, never satisfied. Always striving, but never content (1:5–9).

Through Haggai, Yahweh gives them a reason for their frustration. It’s because they are living to get more stuff, to build up their own house instead of building the house of God.

“Why?” declares the LORD of armies. “Because my house is in ruins, and each of you run to your own house.” (Haggai 1:9)

This is the reason the world is not working correctly for the people. How we live affects the way the world works.

Because of you the heavens are shut up from giving rain and the land is shut up from giving its produce. (Haggai 1:10)

Our Actions Impact the World

It might be easy to hear this message cynically and scoff as though what the prophet is saying is some sort of ridiculous prosperity gospel. If you live for God, your life will be easy. You’ll will have no problems. You’ll be rich and pain-free. That’s not what he’s saying. Throughout Scripture, God walks with his people through hardship and difficulty, suffering and death. Hardship doesn’t necessarily mean that people have been disobedient (Luke 13:1–5). Nevertheless, the general principle holds: Our actions impact the way we experience the world.¹ That’s Haggai’s point.

The Response & the Reason

In the previous book, Zephaniah called out to a people who would not listen to the voice of Yahweh (Zeph 3:2), but Haggai’s audience listens.

Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and all the remnant of the people listened to the voice of Yahweh their God and to the words of Haggai the prophet because Yahweh their God had sent him. The people feared the presence of Yahweh. (Haggai 1:12)

The people listened to Yahweh’s voice because they feared the presence of Yahweh. Haggai illustrates what it means to obey Yahweh out of fear. Haggai made clear to the people that their actions were leading them away from Yahweh’s life-giving presence, and they feared continuing down that path.

Fear, Obedience, and Gospel

That’s not the same thing as what we usually think of when we think about the idea of “obeying out of fear.” In the world I live in, “obeying out of fear” is associated with abuse and the worst sort of parent-child relationship. That is not what Haggai is advocating.

Like a good Father, Yahweh points his people to the problem. Their self-preoccupation was leading them away from the source of all good. They should fear to continue down that path, and they did. They recognized the problem and listened to the voice of their Father. Yahweh called them back to himself.

“I am with you,” declares Yahweh. (Haggai 1:13)

This is the heart of the gospel message in the book of Haggai: Live and work knowing that God is with us.²

Chapter 2

Now, Haggai points the people forward, to look and hope forward, beyond the physical building he called them to build. The book of Haggai looks forward to a future time when God will beautify his temple far beyond the glory of Solomon’s temple.

Reading Haggai as a book that points forward to Christ is not an imposition that cuts against the grain of the text. Haggai himself didn’t know that the glorification of the temple would happen in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, but that is indeed the way his words run. Everything runs to the glory of Christ. To read Haggai’s call to rebuild God’s house as a call to serve people in your church — that is a faithful Christian reading.

Look Ahead

In the second movement of the book, chapter 2, one month after the people began building, Haggai calls the people to recognize that what God is doing among them is much bigger than the physical temple they see.

Who among you, of those who are left, saw this house in its former glory? What do you now see? What is it like now? It’s unimpressive to you, isn’t it? (Haggai 2:3)

Haggai highlights the unimpressive nature of the temple, but he insists that despite the unimpressive appearance of the work, they should indeed go on working:

“Work because I am with you,” declares the LORD of armies. “This is the covenant I made with you came out of Egypt, and my Spirit stands in your midst. Don’t fear.” (Haggai 2:4–5)

Sinai 2.0 in Jesus’s Body

Haggai points forward to a new Sinai moment, when God will once again show up in power like he did at Sinai (2:6). He promises a new Exodus that will fill his house with glory (2:7). The future glory of God’s house will far surpass Solomon’s temple (2:9).

When he was on earth, Jesus said that something greater than Solomon was here (Matt 12:41–42). John makes clear that Jesus considered his own body the temple of God (John 2:19–21). Luke makes clear that God has shown up in power to fill the church with his presence (Acts 2). The author of Hebrews looks back on this passage from Haggai and says that through the Spirit Jesus has brought the church to an unshakable kingdom in Christ (Hebrews 12:18–29). The call to build God’s house is a call to serve the body of Christ, the people in our churches.

The Invitation

Haggai closes with a word of warning very similar to Zephaniah. Zephaniah criticized the people because they would not receive God’s instruction (Zeph 3:7). Haggai warns similarly:

“I struck you with heat and plague and hail, all the work of your hands, and you didn’t come to me,” declares the LORD. (Haggai 2:17)

That was how they responded in the past. Now they are responding! They are building and listening to God’s words. The call is to learn from those past mistakes and move forward in obedience and trust. Twice in chapter one, the prophet called the people to consider their way of living (1:5, 7), and he closes the book the same way (2:15, 18):

Lay it to heart from this day forward! (Haggai 2:18)

He reminds the people that he will respond to their obedience with blessing (2:18–19), which sounds a lot like Hebrews 11:6:

The one who comes to God must believe that he exists and that he is one who responds with gifts to those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)

Haggai and Hebrews both call God’s people to trust God and work for his church. Work with God’s Spirit to build God’ house and trust that he will help you. Trust beyond what you can see. Your work looks meager, but through your meager work God is building an unshakable kingdom (Hebrews 12:18–29), and he will help you, even now.

This is Haggai’s distinctive message in the Book of the Twelve.

☩ Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy and help us to believe even when we can’t see. ☩

Footnotes

1. I discussed this idea in more detail in a previous post: The Organic Connection between Rebellion, Decreation, and Divine Judgment. ↩
2. Another post that highlights God’s presence as the heart of the good news: The Gospel of God with Us in Deuteronomy 1–4 ↩