Hag. 1-2
The exiles who returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple delayed in their task. I get it. Life is busy and building a temple is a BIG project. I imagine the people felt like they needed to settle in before starting on such a grand task. They needed to get their homes and their fields set up so they could provide for themselves. Gotta tend to those basic needs before getting too involved in other things. The time has got to be right to start such a project.
As it turns out, that approach didn’t work out so well for them. The more they tried to get their lives in order, the less their efforts returned to them. “Why? Declares the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.” (Hag 1:9b). It wasn’t until the day they finished laying the foundation for God’s temple that He said, “But from this day on I will bless you.” (Hag 2:19b).
Keep God first. That’s what all of that says to me. No matter how busy life is or how difficult the circumstances, we need to keep God first. In fact, I’d say that the busier and more difficult things are, the more important that becomes. And I don’t think putting God first is limited to spending time in the Bible and prayer, though those are obviously important. If there is anything specific that God has laid on our hearts to do, whether it’s a job, a special project, service of some sort – whatever – we need to make that our priority. That can be hard to discern sometimes, to be sure. But if we’re worried about meeting our own needs and putting our focus there, we’ve probably got it wrong.
2 John 1
Jesus told us to love our enemies. But John said, “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.” (2 John 1:10-11). On the surface, this sounds like we should shut out anyone who does not believe what we know to be truth (that Jesus is God in the flesh). But that love your enemies thing, straight from Jesus’ mouth, contradicts that thought. So what gives?
I have two thoughts about this, both based on the same principle. The first is that John was addressing this letter not so much to individuals but to some kind of fellowship group, be it the church or some subset of the church or whatever. In this case, I would see John as saying that we should not let false teachers into our fellowship. To do so is to deny God’s truth, which is Christ. That’s pretty serious.
The other thought is, if this letter is written on an individual level, that there is a difference between treating people with love and having an intimate relationship with them. Jesus told us that when others hate us and do us wrong we should not respond in like kind. We should instead strive to do good and not harm toward them. As I have mentioned before, this doesn’t mean to give them whatever they want or to be ‘nice’ at the expense of truth – that’s not love. But loving your enemies does not mean treating them like family, where you take down walls and open up vulnerabilities in order to develop intimacy in the relationship. So when John said not to receive or greet anyone who does not accept the truth, he was warning against embracing false truths and accepting those who carry them into your inner circles of fellowship.
In either case, I hear John saying, “Don’t get intimate with lies”. To do so would be to repeat the sins of Israel and Judah who invited other ‘gods’ to infiltrate their lives and become a part of who they were. We are to serve one God through one Truth, who is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.