Mark J. Boda

for people who want to be about doing God's work when it feels like, man, the world has just fallen apart or maybe even threatening to us in a way that makes us feel overwhelmed.

The Christian scholar Mark Boda, he quotes the opening paragraph from an article that he read in the Atlantic Journal the other day that I think sums up the mood on this really well globally.

And it was, the world is too big for us.

Too much going on, too many crimes, too much violence and excitement.

So then if you were unclean, this is a guy's point right here, and you just had to bury a relative, something like that, and then reached out and grabbed a loaf of bread that was sitting on the table, guess what just happened to that loaf? It's unclean.

And then if you reached over and touched the jug of wine, guess what just happened to that jug of wine? You reach out to shake your cousin's hand and then he shakes Aunt Polly's hand and so on down, right? You get the idea that Haggai is pointing to here? Holiness is not transferable, but impurity is.

I like the way one scholar put it.

It's like you can't go over and touch the wall over there and leave a clean print, can you? No, it just looks the same.