Prophesying on the Prophet Haggai! Sorry I had too!
I am fully aware that we are in an Old Testament class and the mindset is to attempt and go about our studies in the spirit of not knowing, as Paul Harvey would say “The Rest of the Story.” But for me when the Prophet Haggai is proclaiming an Exhortation to rebuild the temple and its future glory (Haggai 1:1-2:10) one cannot help but get excited about “The Rest of the Story!” In my daily prayers the Liturgy of the Hours today Cyril of Alexandria, bishop makes a beautiful commentary on Haggai’s prophecy.
So here is “The Rest of the Story” When our Savior came, he appeared as a divine temple, glorious beyond any comparison, far more splendid and excellent than the older temple. Haggai declares that a gift will be made, a gift from heaven given by the Savior. The gift is Christ himself, the peace of all men; through him we have access in the one Spirit to the Father. Haggai goes on to say: I will give peace to this place and peace of soul to save all who lay the foundation to rebuild the temple.
Haggai therefore declares that peace will be given to all who build. The results of these efforts will profit such men/woman so that each will be able to gain his/her own salvation without difficulty. Once a man/woman has been found worthy of Christ’s peace, he/she can easily save his/her soul and guide his/her mind to carry out exactingly the demands of virtue, which leads to true holiness.
God Bless,
Deacon Jim
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3 comments:
Thanks for your perspective, Jim. I also struggle often with the impulse to read "the rest of the story" into our Hebrew Bible texts, especially something like Haggai. I'm still working on resisting that.
I also must say thanks for your post. I often become frustrated with not understanding something I read or wanting to pull the rest of the story together. A good friend of mine recently told me that the frustrations and impulses indicate that we care about the text and want the entire message God has for us. Maybe the knot in my stomach is a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit....
~M.C.
I'm such an impatient person--so what you write about makes perfect sense to me. The "rest of the story" is difficult to resist--but when you think about it, we kind of already know the rest of the story. Why is it that when assigned a text for class, we would NEVER think about reading it twice (let alone numerous times), yet when it comes to scripture, we can't read it enough? I realize the wisdom in scripture is constantly revealing itself to us, but does the same go for other texts? The Bible alone?
Something to think about...
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