Why do Christians despise the day of small things?
This article is a tale of two temples. They’re very different forms of temples, but the Lord builds them the same way.
The first is the one constructed under Zerubbabel as the Jews returned from exile in Babylon. The nation was weak and vulnerable as Jerusalem was being rebuilt. Zerubbabel was the governor but did not have the power of a king. They were under constant threat. Several obstacles remained. By the world’s reckoning, the reconstruction of the temple was foolish and doomed.
And so the Lord encouraged Zerubbabel through the prophet Zechariah with these words:
“This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel:
‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’
Says the Lord of hosts.
‘Who are you, O great mountain?
Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain!
And he shall bring forth the capstone
With shouts of “Grace, grace to it!”’”
Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
“The hands of Zerubbabel
Have laid the foundation of this temple;
His hands shall also finish it.
Then you will know
That the Lord of hosts has sent Me to you.
For who has despised the day of small things?
For these seven rejoice to see
The plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.
They are the eyes of the Lord,
Which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth.”
Zechariah 4:6-10
The Lord’s words mock the might and power of the Jews’ enemies, who are nothing before the Spirit of the Lord. He reduces a “great mountain” to a plain just by His word. He decrees the completion of the temple despite the weakness of the builders — “small things,” as He says, who were despised by their adversaries.
That’s how the Lord works. He doesn’t use the might or power of the world; He uses the small things, whose only power is His Spirit.
Even some of the Jews “despised” the smallness of this temple. The priests and Levites who were old enough to remember Solomon’s temple “wept with a loud voice” (Ezra 3:12) because this one would not match the former’s splendor. The Lord knew this and spoke through the prophet Haggai, “Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? In comparison with it, is this not in your eyes as nothing?” (Haggai 2:3). But the Lord said in verse 9, “The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former.”
How so? In size? In appearance? King Herod would expand Zerubabbel’s temple and make its gold dazzle in the sun. But no, that’s not what the Lord meant. The glory of the latter temple would be greater because the Lord Himself, the true King, would come to it.
We know this because a few days before He was crucified, Jesus and His disciples were leaving the temple. They were impressed with Herod’s enhancements: “Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!” (Mark 13:1). The Lord was not: “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” That was fulfilled 40 years later, when the Romans reduced Herod’s magnificent temple to worthless rubble. Its glory did not save it.
The temple the Lord builds
But instead, Jesus would build another temple. This one would not be a physical structure, but a people, His people. And He would build it the same way He built Zerubabbel’s temple: “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit.”
The church is now God’s temple, indwelt by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16). In Him we are being built and fitted together into a holy temple, the dwelling place of God (Ephesians 2:21-22). We are His chosen, living stones being built up as His house (1 Peter 2:5).
Also like Zerubabbel’s temple, this one is despised as small, even by its own people. We have no armies or kings. We’re a minority, far more than we think. Some among us strive for more of the world’s power, thinking we’re losers without that. All they want is “winning.”
But again, that’s not how the Lord rolls. His way is taught in 1 Corinthians 1, which echoes what He spoke through Zechariah, as well as many other Scriptures:
26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in His presence.
The Lord does not choose might or power, but He fills the weak, foolish, and despised with His Spirit, and that’s how He renders the things of this world as nothing. Why, then, do some who claim His name despise the day of small things?
See also:
