The Best is Yet to Come/ April 21, 2019 ITEMS YOU WILL NEED: When students see a visual aid or write something down, they are much more likely to remember it. We remember 10% --20% of spoken information versus almost 65% of visual information. This is why Jesus pointed to everything from birds and flowers to coins and bottles of wine when He taught. Bring a pair of pants or a skirt. It must be a garment with pockets. Fill the pockets with coins. Instructions for the teacher are given throughout the lesson in italics. Suggested answers to questions are given in parentheses. These answers are only meant to offer guidance. Unfortunately, most teachers allow no more than three seconds of silence after they ask their students a question. Don t hesitate to let a question hang in the air until a student answers. If you are still faced with silence after fifteen seconds or so, you can offer some of the ideas in parentheses to encourage discussion. This spring, The Quarterly is written by Dr. Iain Duguid, an ARP pastor and professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Be sure to read the commentary by Dr. Duguid in the student and teacher editions before using this lesson plan. (Iain is pronounced EE-uhn. Duguid: Du is like the short U in put. Guid is pronounced, gid. ) Link This section of the lesson helps students start thinking about the lesson with a personal connection between their own lives and the general idea of the Bible passage. Ask your class: Have you ever put a lot of effort into something only to have the end result look unimpressive? Maybe the final product is smaller or less grand than you imagined. Maybe you ve worked at a job for years, but no one takes notice of the fruit of your labor. This is the situation of the Jews. They have made progress on the temple, but it s not as impressive as the temple of Solomon that some of them remember.
Learn This section will help you and your students examine the Bible and Dr. Duguid s commentary in greater depth. The prophet Haggai gave his first message to Zerubbabel, the governor of the Jews, in the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month. This equates to August 29, 520 B.C. According to Haggai 1:15, the people restarted the building of the temple on September 22, 520. Chapter 2 tells us that God gave Haggai another message for the people on October 17, 520 ( the seventh month, on the twenty-first day ), so this phase of the building of the new temple had been going on for about a month. The construction was close enough to completion that God asked the people to evaluate it. The people had done good work, and there was nothing wrong with the blueprints or the craftsmanship. But God asked the oldest members of the community to call to mind Solomon s temple before it was destroyed by the Babylonians. Some of the Jews who had returned from Babylonia recalled from their childhood the glory of the first temple. God pointed out in verse 3 that the new temple was not as glorious as Solomon s. But God encouraged them to keep up the work because more important than a glorious temple was the fact that God was with them. Read aloud 2:1-9. What did God promise the people in verse 4? (God promised, I am with you. ) According to what covenant did God promise to be with the Jews? ( According to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. ) Did any of the Jews living in 520 B.C. come out of Egypt? (No.) Why was God associating these Jews with the ones who left Egypt in 1446 B.C.? (In God s eyes, they are one people, one nation.) What did the Egyptians give the Jews when they left Egypt? (They gave them jewelry and other gold and silver objects, just as Persia gave the Jews silver and gold to rebuild the temple.) Look at verse 6-8 where God said he would shake the nations and the Jews would receive treasure. It s as if God was saying he would turn the nations upside down and shake them, and the silver and gold would fall out of their pockets and into the hands of the Jews so that they could adorn the new temple. (Turn the pants that you brought upside down and shake out the coins.) Remember that in Ezra 6, the people found the instructions given by King Cyrus of Persia twenty years earlier. These instructions said that the costs [of rebuilding] are to be paid by the royal treasury. Also the gold and
silver articles of the house of God which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem... are to be returned to their places in the temple in Jerusalem.... The expenses of these men [the builders] are to be fully paid out of the revenues of the province Beyond the River, so that the work will not stop. (Ezra 6:4-8) The province called Beyond the River was the Persian province in which Judah lay. The costs of rebuilding the temple were to be paid not by the Jews but out of the treasury of Persia. As God said in Haggai 2:8, the silver is mine, and the gold is mine. Have you ever felt God was calling you to do something, but you did not know how you would have the money to do it? How did God provide? Or did God not provide the money, and you decided that God was not calling you to do that project at that time? Before reading the next section, explain verses 11-14. Dr. Duguid says that God instructed Haggai to go to the priests for a legal opinion on a hypothetical situation. The case involved a worshipper returning from the temple carrying consecrated meat in a fold of his garment, which was the ancient equivalent of a pocket (2:12) This could happen if someone offered a fellowship offering as a result of a vow or a freewill offering, where some of the meat was returned to the worshipper and it didn't all have to be consumed on the same day. Suppose the man was carrying something else in his pocket as well. The other object in his pocket was not consecrated (made holy). For example, assume he had a piece of bread in the pocket. The bread touches the fabric of the pocket, but the bread does not touch the meat. Haggai asks, Can the fabric of the pocket pass the holiness of the meat on to the bread? Leviticus 6 says that consecrated meat does make the fabric of the pocket holy. But the fabric does not pass the holiness on to a third object. (NIV, 1396) The answer to Haggai s question was no, as the priests answered in verse 12. Then Haggai asked another question. The law of the Old Testament said that if a person touched a dead body, that person became ceremonially unclean. The law did not prohibit touching dead bodies, but it did say that after someone touched a dead body, he or she had to perform a ritual to regain ceremonial cleanliness. In verse 13, Haggai asked, if a person who has touched a dead body touches any of the objects in the first example -- the holy meat, the holy fabric, or the unholy bread -- would these things become ceremonially unclean? The priests answered, Yes, anything touched by a ceremonially unclean person becomes unclean. (v.13)
The point is that ceremonial uncleanness is transmitted much more easily than holiness. (NIV, 1396) Think of it this way. If you are digging with your hands in the soil of your garden, your hands will be covered with dirt. If your friend walks up in your yard and shakes hands with you, will the cleanness of your friend s hand be transferred to your hand? Or will the dirt on your hand be transferred to your friend s hand? The answer is that the dirt on your hand will make your friend s hand dirty. In the same way, ceremonial uncleanness is transmitted more easily than cleanness. What does all of this have to do with the situation of the people in Haggai s day? Commentators offer several possibilities. The ESV Study Bible commentary says that the people are following the law with their sacrifices, but they are unclean because they allow a corpse -- the unfinished temple -- to remain among them. (ESV, 1746) The problem with this interpretation is that by this time, the people had gone back to work on the temple. The NIV Study Bible suggests, Even though the people were back in the holy land, that holiness did not make them pure. They needed to obey the Lord, particularly with regard to rebuilding the temple. (NIV, 1396) This makes sense if Haggai s meaning is, You are doing good work on the temple. Don t quit now! Dr. Duguid says that the people s sin had placed them under [God s] curse.... [A]ny sacrifice they offered would be contaminated by their defilement, instead of sanctifying them by its holiness. But now, because of the rebuilding of the temple, the Lord would act to transform their status from defiled to holy, which meant he could accept their offerings once again. Read 2:10-14 aloud. Before reading verses 15-19, explain that Haggai was referring to the time when the people were not rebuilding the temple. Before they were building ( before stone was placed upon stone ), when someone came to a heap of grain expecting there to be twenty measures worth, there were only ten measures because the harvest was poor. When a person came to a wine vat to draw out fifty measures, there were only twenty measures available because the grape harvest was poor. The harvest was poor because God was holding back his full blessing to get the people s attention. But now a time had come when the people were obeying God and building the temple, and God said, From this day on I will bless you. (v.19) Read 2:15-19 aloud.
In verse 17, God said that he struck the harvest with blight, mildew, and hail. In modern America, God is unlikely to use a bad harvest to get our attention. Of course, some among us still farm, but most of us get our food from a store. A drought does not affect us immediately because farmers irrigate the land. The money they pay for their extra water usage is passed on to us, but most of us can afford to pay a little more for groceries, so the drought does not mean we go without food. If a hailstorm affects the crops in one area, that does not usually affect us either. Modern trucking and rail service mean that we can get food from distant states quickly. Because of modern technology, the weather does not usually affect us as directly as it did the Jews in 520 B.C. But God uses other methods to get our attention. How has God changed your circumstances to get your attention? In verse 19, God pointed out that the harvest had not yet come. But God promised that his blessing would start immediately and would not stop. Why should the Jews trust this promise? (If they looked at the stories of their people s history, they would have seen that when God said something would happen, it did. When the Israelites obeyed, they were blessed.) Read aloud 2:20-23. As Dr. Duguid says, The final oracle was addressed to Zerubbabel [the Jewish governor of Judah], but it contained a message for the entire people. Earlier, the image of shaking was for the purpose of gathering wealth from the nations. Here it refers to widespread destruction of the nations. (ESV, 1747) History teaches us that the Persians were overthrown by the Greek, Alexander the Great. After Alexander s death, the dynasties created by his generals were overthrown by Rome. A signet ring (v.23) was a ring with a raised surface. The owner of the ring had a special pattern engraved on this surface. It was his own design, his signature. If he wanted to show that he approved or claimed something, he pressed the ring pattern into soft wax or clay. For example, an official document would be sealed with hot wax. Before the wax hardened, the man would pressed the signet ring into the wax, leaving his signature imprint in the wax. This indicated the document s authenticity to anyone who received it.
Dr. Duguid says, In the ancient world, a seal was worn on a ring or on a chain so it could be kept close to its owner at all times. Like modern credit cards, it was a prized possession because of the consequences of its loss. In Jeremiah 22, God declared to Jehoiachin, one of the last kings of Judah before the exile, Even if you, Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off. God s reaction was due to the disobedience of Jehoiachin. Zerubbabel was the grandson of the rejected Jehoiachin. Dr. Duguid says, Haggai s oracle reversed the previous image of rejection, announcing that on the day of the great shaking, the Lord will treat Zerubbabel like a seal [a signet ring] -- a treasured and chosen possession. Zerubbabel was a guarantee that one day the Messiah descended from David would come. In the book of Matthew, Zerubbabel is in the genealogical line of Christ. These verses say that God will destroy the nations that people assume are strong. But God s plan for his people still stood, and we know that it led a few centuries later to Jesus. What nations have been destroyed in your lifetime? How has the United States been used by God? Is the U.S. God s chosen nation, or is it in the same category as all other nations -- used by God but not chosen by God in the sense that Israel was? (God has used the U.S. as a force for good, but it has also been a force for evil when its government has made grave mistakes. The only chosen people on the earth today are those who make up the Church. Its members are followers of Jesus who are found in all geopolitical entities.) Live This part of the lesson will help your students apply the lesson and may help you think of your relationship with God in a new way. Use Dr. Duguid s questions: What things discourage you about your own life and about the church? How is Haggai s prophecy good news?
Is our status before God holy or profane? Why is that important to understand? Explain. What reminders has the Lord given to encourage us to look backward to his great acts of redemption in the past and his future acts to turn the world right side up? How is Christ the ultimate fulfillment of these oracles? Also ask: This Bible reading started with God s asking the people to compare the new temple with Solomon s temple. The new temple was not nearly as impressive. Have you ever looked at the work you were doing for God and felt defeated? Have you been disillusioned and thought, Other people are doing great work for God, and my work is unimpressive? What does God say to that kind of thinking in Haggai 2:1-9? (God can use our work even if on the surface it looks unimpressive.) Verses 10-19 say that our work is tainted with sin and things may look beak, but God can work around our sin and bless our work anyway. How have you seen God bring beauty or growth out of situations that looked unpromising? Zerubbabel s line led to Jesus. The Jews wanted a new Jewish nation and a political victory. But God had a world-wide nation of Jesus-followers in mind, and only the death and resurrection of the Messiah would give birth to it. As the Christian singer Michael Card says, the Jews wildest dreams had simply not been wild enough. Close in prayer, thanking God for understanding our disappointments. Thank God for giving us Jesus so that our lives have hope. Ask for God s strength to do the work he has called you to do, even if for now it looks like an unimpressive temple. Bibliography ESV Study Bible. Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2008. NIV Study Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995.
-Online lessons by Wendy Herrmann Smith