With one another

I love team work. Musicians know how important and exciting it can be to work together. So do those who play team sports. Business people feel the power of leaning in to each other's strengths rather than simply going solo. Church-goers experience the connection of singing hymns together. Readers in Christian Science churches have found that sharing their individual inspiration at rehearsal lifts the tone of the Sunday service.

A recent editorial in The Christian Science Monitor quotes musicologist Daniel Chua: "Music is a call toward relationship, toward a new understanding of what it means to be in the world and to be with one another" (Liberation through music - in prison, CSM June 30, 2025 p. 29). The editorial also speaks of "the discipline and shared decision-making that a group performance demands". 

Discipline and shared decision-making. Isn't that grand? There are many examples of working together in the Bible. Think Nehemiah building the wall, Joshua and his soldiers encompassing the city together. But I didn't realise that our friend Haggai had a team thing going on too. His short book covers a period of just 3 months. (We read about the "second year of Darius" and the 1st and 24th days of the sixth month, the 21st day of the seventh month and the 24th day of the ninth month.) During that time there were three characters working together, encouraging the rebuild of the temple: 

• Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah
• Joshua, the priest
• Haggai, the prophet (followed later by Zechariah)

The tendency of the people was towards secularism. Sound familiar? Zerubbabel, Joshua and Haggai were countering that tendency.

Together they virtually asked: Why not now? 

What a team!

Julie Swannell

Readers might like "Rising and Building" from The Christian Science Journal June 1932 by Glenn Adams Byers. Christian Science Reading Rooms will help you source this article.

Putting God first

Haggai was a visionary encourager. When the temple-rebuild was needed, he was there to see the work was not delayed and would prosper.

I was wondering if Haggai is mentioned anywhere apart from in the book bearing his name. Indeed he is. Here are the two places we read about him in Ezra, from the Authorised King James Version:

Ezra 5:1

Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them.

Ezra 6:14

And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they builded, and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia.

The other nine times we read his name are all in Haggai. Here are two I especially like:

Haggai 1:13

Then spake Haggai the Lord’s messenger in the Lord’s message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord.

Haggai 1:2-6

² Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built. ³ Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, ⁴ Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? ⁵ Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. ⁶ Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.

I was struck by this last passage because I remembered working with the “bag with holes” phrase many years ago when funds seemed never to be sufficient.  

In an article published in the Christian Science Sentinel dated Sept. 30, 1972, Naomi Price (Bags without holes) zeroes in on this type of situation:

“The prophet was referring to the people's shortsighted absorption in material wants. He was warning them that their material-mindedness and lack of enough selfless reverence for God to glorify Him in their lives, and to prove their love for Him by rebuilding His house, were leading to misery and depletion. But many men and women in this twentieth century have the unhappy feeling that this description applies to them, too—that they are working hard for wages that all too quickly vanish under the pressure of high taxation and the continually rising cost of living. They wonder how they can plug the holes in their pockets and have enough to supply the legitimate needs of their families.

“In fact, the solution to modern problems of an inflated economy is to be found in the spiritual message underlying the advice given by Haggai to the people of Judah. He urged them to put God first in their thoughts and to prove that they were doing so by rebuilding "the Lord's house" before decorating their own dwellings. He pointed out that God is the source of all true substance: "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine," he represented God as saying.”

What rich treasures this book is yielding.

Julie Swannell

I like Mr. Haggai

 I like Mr. Haggai. And I would like one of his ilk to pop up around Jerusalem. And where I am. Please.

I read what Dummelow has to say on our man. (Dummelow: A Commentary on the Holy Bible – very old but still good, I reckon.)

I had a problem. Nehemiah kept nagging at me. What was it that he came back to build? Is this the same task? It has become clear that it was not the same task. Nehemiah’s mission was to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Haggai’s was to prod the returned folk into forgetting themselves and building the temple which had been in Jerusalem but been destroyed, the point being that if they built the temple their own lives would be enhanced.

It seems that the building would be quite modest compared to the original.

I found this website to be very informative. The writer compares coming out of Covid with the coming out of the exiles from Persia.

https://wearefaith.org/blog/lessons-from-ezra-nehemiah-and-haggai-and-zechariah-in-this-time/

Joyce Voysey