Today, I am reading and commenting on  Zephaniah and Haggai.

Zephaniah prophesied during the reign of Josiah, who implemented religious reform and tried to turn the people of Jerusalem back to God.  Some references I found suggested that Zephaniah prophesied before Josiah began his reforms, but this reads to me as directed at those who paid lip service to Josiah’s reforms while worshiping idols in secret.  More than that Zephaniah also seems to prophesy against those who are indifferent to the idolatry and corruption going on around them.  Zephaniah calls the people of Jerusalem and Judah to seek the Lord with humility.

Haggai prophesied to the Returned Exiles.  The Returned Exiles had not begun rebuilding the Temple because they wanted to get themselves solidly established in the land before doing so.  They believed that they should make sure that they had enough to survive before they began spending resources on building the Temple.  There is merit to such an attitude: one should not starve oneself or one’s children in order to have a more pleasant place to worship.  However, the problem with that attitude is that there is always more one must do before one’s own survival is assured.  Haggai actually tells us another reason to not take that approach.  If we truly put our faith in God then we will trust Him to provide us with enough to do His will and to survive.  Haggai’s message was, “Don’t wait to get your affairs in order before doing God’s will.  Do God’s will first, and He will sort that all out for you.”

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.