Malachi (4)

Here is what our small group used to work through our fourth session with Malachi - maybe there is something here for you.

Chapters 3 and 4 are interconnected, but since we can’t do everything in one morning, we’re doing the best we can by looking at three distinct sections.

In 3:1 we have a glimpse of not only the Messiah, but also of the messenger who goes before the Messiah. Compare Isaiah 40:3 – 4; Malachi 4:5 – 6; Matthew 3:3; 11:10 – 14; 17:10 – 13; Luke 1:76; 3:4 – 6.

There is a lot to ponder concerning the “Messenger” and we’ll likely pick it back up when we get to Malachi 4:5; I’ve given the above passages as background more than anything.

In 3:1 we see the Messiah termed as “Lord” and as the “Messenger of the covenant”. So we have two messengers in 3:1; the messenger who goes before the Messenger.

What do we see about the Lord’s coming in 3:1 – 4?

Do we recognize Christ when He comes to His Temple? When He comes to our local churches? When He comes to us? He is always coming to us – do we see Him?

What hinders us from seeing Him, both as individuals and as churches?

How does Christ come to us in our marriages and families? In our workplaces? In our neighborhoods? In our churches?

Thinking about 3:2 – 3; how is Christ purifying our lives? What does this look like?

What have you learned, what are you learning, about how Christ purifies you?

Note the picture of restoration in 3:4 – we have hope in the final outcome.

Consider please verse 5, what is God judging?

1.    Sorcerers (think both New Age and the occult)

2.    Adulterers (recall what we covered this week)

3.    Those who swear falsely (does a person’s “word” matter anymore?)

4.    Those who oppress the wage earner in his wages (are employees treated fairly, are companies seeking the “greater good”, or are people simply “human resources” to be expended and thrown away?)

5.    The widow (show me how a nation or a church treats its elderly, its orphans, its unborn, its poor, and I’ll show you the character of a church and nation)

6.    The orphan (see above)

7.    Those who turn aside the alien and do not fear me (show me how a church and a nation treat aliens and refugees and I’ll show you the character of a nation and church…excuses, excuses, excuses)

Note how our passage ends in Malachi 3:6. Compare Hebrews 13:8.

How does Malachi 3:1 – 6 challenge us? How does it encourage us?

Are we living lives of obedience to this passage? How?

Do we see Christ coming into our lives…again, and again, and again?

Much love,

Bob

Malachi (3)

Below is what our small group considered in its third session in Malachi. Maybe there is something here for you. 

Let’s please consider Malachi 2:10 – 16.

Let me say at the outset that this passage is like trying to hit a knuckleball – it moves one way and then another and it can be confusing. Since we can’t just stand at the plate and do nothing, we’ll take our best swings and see what happens. When I consulted an “academic” commentary (a commentary which looks closely at ancient languages, grammar, history, and different ways of looking at a passage) I have on Malachi, I realized that Hoyt Wilhelm (an old knuckleball pitcher) must be descended from Malachi.

Taking a first look at the passage, what do see as its main point(s)?

I think there are two things going on at the same time, and this is one of the things that makes the passage a knuckleball. On the one hand Israel is once again worshiping idols, and on the other hand the men are divorcing their Jewish wives and marrying pagan women who are bringing with them pagan gods; one practice is feeding the other practice. (I’ve pondered this for a few days!)

It is interesting to me that in Hosea, which is the first Minor Prophet, we looked at Israel’s adultery in marrying foreign gods (Hosea chapters 1 – 3). Now in Malachi, the last Minor Prophet, we are dealing with the very same thing.

Hosea took place before the Assyrians destroyed the northern kingdom (Israel) and Babylon destroyed the southern kingdom (Judah); in Malachi the people of Judah have returned from Babylonian captivity and rebuilt Jerusalem and the Temple and now they are back to doing the same thing.

Regarding marrying pagan women, take a look at Ezra 9:1 – 4 and Nehemiah 13:23 – 31. We looked at these passages last May and June. The sequence was:

1.    Judah comes back from captivity.

2.    Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah insist that the priests, civil leaders, and people not form alliances with pagans and not marry pagans; and that the pagan women they have married be sent away.

3.    The people obey.

4.    Then after a few years (let’s say within 50 – 100 years) the priests, government leaders, and people go back the worshiping idols, forming alliances with pagans, and marrying pagan women.

5.    God speaks through Malachi – the last Old Testament prophet.

6.    God (in a sense) will not speak prophetically to His people for 450 years; then come John the Baptist and Jesus Christ.

There are a lot of moving parts in all of this, which is a reason reading, reading, and reading the Bible is critical to developing a framework for “seeing” the Bible.

Note the sequence of Malachi; from Malachi 1:6 – 2:9 we see the sins of the priests, then beginning in 2:10 we see the sins of the people. If the leaders are sinful and immoral, the people will follow. If the ministers and priests are wicked, the people will be wicked. Please remind me again why the morality of our leaders doesn’t matter? I seem to have missed that one. If our seminaries are teaching pagan and worldly thinking, and denying the Bible as the Word of God, and not placing the Christ of the Cross above everything else in life – then what can we expect our congregations to do?

Malachi 2:11. I think the “sanctuary” here is the People of God. God’s People are where God lives. When one of us sins we bring sin into the sanctuary, the rest of us are affected by the sin. 1 Peter 2:5; Ephesians 2:19 – 22; 1 Corinthians 5:6 - 8. If an offensive lineman misses his blocking assignment it affects the entire team; if a soldier on the perimeter goes to sleep, the enemy can infiltrate the camp; the weakest link in a band of brothers can lead to the destruction of the unit.

Here is a nice quote from my commentary, “…the mixed marriages were a desecration of the ‘sanctuary of God,” a violation of Israel’s spiritual existence as a covenant people. Through these marriages the frontiers between covenant people and heathen, between church and world were obliterated.”

The idea that sin can be “private” and not affect others is simply not true. If Christians are truly “members of one another” (1 Cor. 12:12; Rom. 12:4; Eph. 4:25), then what one person does affects the entire Body. Here are some more excerpts from the commentary:

“The sinful divorces which they had considered a private affair had not escaped the notice of the Lord. It is because He had acted as witness.” (The Books of Haggai and Malachi, Pieter A. Verhoef, The New International Critical Commentary on the Old Testament, Eerdmans).

“Whatever the reason for the divorces might have been, the fact remains that it was the reason why the communion with God was broken.”

Malachi 2:13: Judah thought that it could sin by practicing unrestrained and wholesale divorce, and by worshiping pagan gods, and that the True and Living God would still accept their worship. They believed that then, and we believe that now. We believe that we can teach whatever we want to, live however we want to, and that our Sugar Daddy God will pat us on our heads and be proud of us and understand that we are well-intentioned.

Do you think about the fact that when you sin it affects us all?

Do you think about the fact that when you are obedient to Christ that it blesses us all?

Is it possible to restore a Biblical view of marriage, divorce, fornication (sex outside of marriage), adultery, and sexual purity within the professing-church in our nation?

What are the challenges to such a restoration?

How might we begin the process?

Why don’t we think sex outside of marriage is sinful?

Considering that the Bible is clear about sexuality and marriage, why is it that a couple can live together without being married, attend church, join a church, and not be held accountable for sexual sin?

How can churches model strong marriages and strengthen all marriages?

How can churches model sexual purity?

A promiscuous society and a promiscuous church (a church that worships the idols of the world) produces promiscuous people, and promiscuous people produce an idolatrous church.

I love you!

Bob

Malachi (2)

Below is the material I asked our small group to consider in Malachi Chapter Two. As I have likely pointed out previously, there is often a disconnect between the vividness of God in the Bible and the prim and proper way we engage the Bible on Sundays. Malachi 2:3 is an example of this, Sunday school texts and sermons would typically put a gloss on this verse, cleaning it up for Sunday consideration - but in doing so we lose the thrust of just how disgusting it is when priests, pastors, and teachers depart from the True and Living God and lead people astray - our Father and Lord Jesus do not want us to gloss over the heinousness of this sin - they want us to see it, taste it, smell it. 

Chapter Two is in two parts, the first part (verses 1 – 9) deals with the priests, the balance of the chapter deals with the nation as a whole in its outlook and practice of divorce – we'll work with the first section this week.  

Regarding the first part, verse 3 gives us a fine graphic – Yahweh is going to spread dung, poopy, intestinal product – on the faces of the priests! Can’t you hear the doorbell? “Avon calling!”

It didn’t take long after the city and Temple were rebuilt for the priests to revert to the very ways that contributed to the judgement of God and the destruction of the Temple and the Babylonian Captivity. Do we see a pattern here?

Are there any volunteers to reenact this on stage? Let’s draw straws.

What do you see in Malachi 2:1 – 9?

  

Please keep in mind that the false priests, ministers, pastors, and prophets and teachers that we read about in the Bible, both OT and NT, are often within the Church; in the NT this is nearly always the case. A Biblically illiterate church, such as we have in the West, contributes to this problem.

A lack of accountability within much of the professing-church also contributes to this problem. This lack of accountability can exist within congregations and also within denominations and associations.

When the church adopts what’s popular and trendy – it will nearly always start on a slippery slope and then at some point hit Mach 1 into false teaching. When Christ ceases to be our North Star, when He ceases to be our center of gravity, when we serve ourselves rather than Christ and others – we are on the slippery slope. When we no longer take up our cross daily and follow Christ, denying ourselves – we are on the slippery slope.

Please read Matthew 7:15 – 23; 2 Corinthians 11:13 – 15; 2 Timothy 3:1 – 7; 4:1 – 4 There is a lot more of this, a whole lot more, but you get the idea. We see false teaching and false teachers in most of the NT letters, in Acts, in the Gospels, and of course in Revelation.

When you are listening to a sermon or homily, or reading a book by a Christian teacher, pastor, or leader – how do you think about what you are hearing or reading?

How do you determine if what you are hearing or reading is true or false?

If you were mentoring a new Christian, what five things (or more) would you teach them to look for when hearing or reading “Christian” teaching, to determine whether it is true teaching or false teaching? Here is my own list:

1.    Christ is the center, the focal point

2.    Christ is the transforming agent – we only have lasting change in and through Jesus Christ.

3.    If a rabbi, a philosopher, or a motivational speaker could say essentially the same thing then it isn’t the Gospel and Christ-centered; Christian teaching is unambiguously centered on Christ, pointing to Christ, and calling for obedience to Christ.

4.    Is the teaching explicitly rooted in the Bible; does it appeal to the Bible as its foundation? Is the teaching within the framework of Mere Christianity? Mere Christianity are those truths which all Christians have held as central to our faith throughout all times and places.

5.  Does the teaching promote glory to Christ; encouragement, challenge, transformation and accountability in Christians; a call to the world to repent and follow Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?

Malachi (1)

Our men's group is finishing up its exploration of the Minor Prophets by working through Malachi. Below is our first week in this prophet - maybe there is something here for you. 

Next week our passage will be Malachi Chapter 1.

If you read notes in a study Bible or look at a Bible commentary or read articles online, you may see that people who think about such things entertain varying opinions about when Malachi was written. When I thought about these different opinions, I had the image of a dog chasing its tail; while a dog chasing its tail is natural, I can’t quite see a man chasing his tail, that seems a bit strange and unseemly.

Since I don’t want to encourage unseemly behavior among us, I am going to work with the traditional idea that Malachi was written around 450 B.C. If the actual date is that important most of us reading this will find out sooner rather than later – though I kind of doubt it will matter to us once we make the great transition that awaits us all.

Note the similarity between Malachi 1:1 and Zechariah 9:1 and Isaiah 17:1; the “burden” or “oracle”.  God’s Word is coming to Israel and Judah through these men, it is a “burden” in the sense that God’s Word is weighty, it isn’t motivational speaking, it isn’t cotton candy. It is an “oracle” in the sense that their message doesn’t originate within themselves, but from God.

Compare Matthew 7:28 – 29 and 1 Peter 4:10 – 11 with Malachi 1:1. What do you see?

Looking at 1 Peter 4:11 – do you think professing-Christians are aware of what Peter is saying in terms of how we ought to be preaching and teaching?

What does the world tend to see in our preaching and teaching? Gravity or cotton candy? What do you think most Christians gravitate toward? What kind of books do they tend to purchase?

How might things be different if we realized the way we (the Church) ought to be preaching and speaking?

There is an ongoing conversation between God and the priests and people in Malachi. It begins with the question of whether God loves Israel (verses 2 – 5). An indication of God’s love for Israel is that He loved Jacob (whose name became Israel) and hated Esau. Paul works with this passage in Malachi in Romans 9:1 – 16.

Do you remember what I said above about chasing tails? We could chase our tails on some of the questions this raises, but if our group did that we’d burn a hole in the carpet at Bill and Bev’s and Bev would not like that and then we couldn’t come back.

So I’ll just point out some things: all that the Father gives Jesus will come to Jesus (John 6:37), no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws Him (John 6:44), God is accomplishing His work in those He has drawn to Jesus (Romans 8:28 – 30), and God set this all in motion before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3 – 10).

Since He chose us and we didn’t choose Him (John 15:16) we might as well get with the program and “go and bear fruit” and make a difference in the world and trust in the character of our Father for the things we don’t understand.

In other words, we can chase our tails about the things we don’t know or we can be a blessing to the people around us to our Father’s glory.

What do you see in Malachi 1:6 – 14?

Consider that, for our purposes, the situation in Malachi arises not long after Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah have helped to restore the exiles to Jerusalem and Judah, rebuilt the Temple and part of the city, and reinstituted worship. What in the world has happened and how did it happen so quickly?

These rascals in Malachi aren’t giving God the best, they aren’t taking His holiness seriously, and it seems there is no one around who will say, “Enough! This is crazy! Stop it!”

But of course God will be gloried, with our without these rascals (Malachi 1:11).

I could not pass this quotation up, it is from poet James Russell Lowell:

They are slaves who fear to speak for the fallen and the weak; they are slaves who will not choose hatred, scoffing, and abuse, rather than in silence shrink from the truth they needs must think; they are slaves who dare not be in the right with two or three.

The writer of Hebrews says that we ought to go outside the camp (Jerusalem, meaning the religious environment that killed Jesus) bearing the reproach of Christ (Hebrews 13:13).

We can either go with the flow or stand with Malachi. We can either be true to Jesus Christ or be slaves to the society around us.

As I hope we’ll see, Malachi is about giving God our true worship – all that we have and all that we are (Mark 12:29 – 31). It is about God’s holiness and us worshipping Him in holiness. It is about no compromise with sin, with religious toxicity, with anything that would detract from the glory which is God’s alone.

We are not called to be entertainers, we are not called to accommodate the culture around us, we are not called to compromise the Gospel and God’s holiness – we are called to follow Christ and Jesus Christ alone…no matter what.  

I love you!

Bob