Haggai 1:4-6: “ [Is it] time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house [lie] waste? Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but you have not enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourself but there is none warm; and he that earns wages earns wages to put it into a bag with holes.”
Throughout my life I have heard the book of Haggai quoted during church building programs where the building of a church is likened to the rebuilding of the temple (which is enough to make rabbis throw salt in the air) and if one does not tithe the result is seen in verse 1:6. In other words you will never get ahead financially. However, let us just take a look at Haggai from an historical context and see if an application can be made today.
Haggai and Zechariah were among the first to return to the land of Israel after the captivity. The Jews usually date the captivity from the destruction of the temple in 586 BC to the rebuilding of the temple in 515 BC. Actually, the first deportation of the Jews started in 605 almost 19 years before the temple was destroyed and the first return of the Jews under the Persian King Cyrus led by Shesbazzar and later Zerubbabel was in 538. Here is a very interesting footnote, Christian scholars date the captivity from the first captive to the return but Jewish scholars date the captivity from the date of the destruction of the temple to the rebuilding of the temple. You see, to the Jews, captivity meant being separated from the presence of God who- dwelled in the temple.
The temple was the central place of worship. Without the temple and the altar true Levitical worship could not take place. The real captivity was when the Jews could not properly worship God or stand in His presence. Most Jews before the captivity just could not wrap their brains around the idea of God destroying His temple and place of worship. Would God really allow His very dwelling place to be destroyed? This was a key reason Jeremiah was so mocked and scorn. Logic just didn’t dictate the destruction of the temple, even though the concept of logic did not come about until the time of the Greeks.
However, much to the surprise of most Jews the temple was destroyed. To lose the presence of God was very traumatic and many of us know about that from personal experience. In captivity the Jews were really at a loss what to do without their temple, so they established synagogues to discuss the law and would pray every day toward Jerusalem, as a substitute for worship, but to them it was not true worship. The presence of God in the temple was far away. The concept of the church came out of this synagogue idea which is not really Biblical, but a good idea. To compare our local church building, however, to the temple is not only comparing apple to oranges but it is just outright wrong and an insult to any orthodox Jew. I even remember one rabbi saying that if his congregation were to tithe, he would consider a sin for tithing was only meant for the temple. The Apostle Paul made a statement in I Corinthians 3:16 that shows the distinction between the temple in Jerusalem and our local church buildings. “Know ye not that you are the temple of God and the Spirit dwells in you.” Hence if there is any building program to compare to the temple it is in us. If we are to tithe we have to tithe to our own bodies. Good heavens, what am I saying? (Pause, as I slap my wrist.) Hey Paul said it not me, that our bodies are the temple of God. We no longer build a building for God to dwell in as that building exist in us. As long as you are alive, the temple is there, but that does not mean it is well maintained.
So since this verse speaks of the Jewish people neglecting to rebuild the temple, can this verse apply to us today since the temple of God dwells within us and we cannot be separated from our temple like the Jews taken into captivity. Forget the temple, and let’s focus on the purpose of the temple which was a dwelling place for God’s presence. It is a place to worship. You do not need a church building to worship God, you worship God in Spirit and in Truth, not in a building. What the people were doing and what Haggai was condemning was putting your livelihood before your relationship with God. It is a matter of asking: “What comes first?” If you put your own gizzard first and then verse 6 applies.
In verse 4 God says: “Time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house [lie] waste?” Obviously, God is really asking: “Why are you dwelling in luxurious homes while the house of God lies in ruin?” The word cieled in Hebrew is sapan which means paneled or covered homes and comes from an old Phoenician word masapanath which was used for a roof or ceiling. However, in the Akkadian it is sapanu which means overwhelming. It was used in the context of the marvelous and beautiful buildings that were built in the Assyrian Empire. The Jews during captivity got used to not having a temple. When it came time to return to their land they wanted to get their own houses built, their own employment going then when they had time they would build a temple and worship God. That is what is being condemned here, not the idea of giving God a better house than yours. You see it didn’t take long to build a shelter to live in while building a temple to God. Only they got to thinking that maybe God did not want them to live in a dump, they were kings kids after all, He wanted them to prosper and be rich and have nice homes and nice things, so they started to build better and fancier homes all the time putting off their worship to God.
I suppose I react to the idea of using these verses to instruct people to give tithes and offerings to build a church because such a view causes one to miss the intent of this passage. It is not about tithing or about building a church it is about what is really important in your life. To teach that if you pay your tithe God will bless is only feeding into the problem because you are still seeking benefit for yourself first. Jesus said it best: “Matthew 6:33 “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” That is Haggai 1:4-6 in a nutshell.
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