Malachi 2:1-9 - Warning to leaders

The priests now get further warnings. Now everyone is responsible for their own life. No matter whatever anyone else does, I have the responsibility to live my life for God, but leaders have a special responsibility. 

The priests are called on to honour God with a warning of judgement if they do not do so. Indeed the judgement is already coming upon them. We need to honour God. Verse 3 expresses this in no uncertain terms, and in most churches if a preacher or prophet spoke like this we would be greatly offended! 

Notice what it then says in verse 4. The purpose of this warning is so that covenant may continue. And the covenant is a covenant if life and peace. God's plan for our life is life and peace, but to receive this we need to honour and fear the Lord. Now all this talk of Levi being absolutely wonderful seems odd, because Levi was not perfect. But Jesus is our perfect high priest.

The role of a priest (and we can apply this to all leaders) is to "preserve knowledge", that is knowledge of God. We are sent to give the Lord's instruction. We meant to help people follow Christ. But the priests of Malachi's day, and many leaders today, had instead caused people to stumble, to disobey God. If we do this then we will be humiliated by God.

Malachi 1:6-14 - The Lord who is to be feared

The people were not honouring God. This was despite their society acknowledging that sons should honour fathers, and slaves should honour masters. Any society that wishes to succeed must have honour and respect as part of its system. 

To make matters worse it was the priests that led the way in dishonouring God, in showing contempt for His name. Sadly this is a pattern that continues in many parts of the church today. In their case they showed this by offering defiled food. They offered diseased or lame animals to God, something that was forbidden by the Law. They treated God in a way they would treat no-one else. We need to be careful here, for we can so easily do the same. We don't devote enough time in prayer, or read the word half-heartedly.

So God declares that he will banish them from His temple. We so easily lose sight of the fact that it is only God who has the right to decide how He is approached, how He is worshipped. The Lord is lord of all the earth, acceptable offerings would be made to Him throughout the earth. This is looking forward to what would happen as the gospel was spread.

The people considered worship of God to be a burden. We need to remember who the Lord is. He is the great king and His name is to be feared.

Malachi 1:1-5 - Jacob I loved, Esau I hated

The people have returned from exile for sometime now. Some rebuilding has been completed, including the temple, but the hearts of the people have not really returned to God. In this prophecy God addresses the hearts of the people, the attitudes that they have and that they need to correct.

As mentioned in the introduction, Malachi means "my messenger", or even "my angel" (angel means messenger).

The first prophecy makes Israel aware that God is God of all the world. "Great is the Lord - even beyond the borders of Israel". Israel was surrounded by various nations, most of them hostile (nothing changes). We too can think like this, we do so whenever we think "God is Lord, but He cannot deal with this problem that I am facing". We might not phrase like it that, but that is often what we think.

The people doubted that God loved them. So what does God use as an example of His love? The judgement upon Edom. Edom grew out of Esau. God made a choice, He chose to bless Jacob (ie Israel) but Esau came under judgement. Edom was apparently making loud claims to be rebuilding her ruins. God declares that she would not succeed. Israel would see the judgement upon Edom (and where is Edom today?).

God has chosen one people and not another.

Malachi - Introduction

Well here we are on the last book of the Old Testament, and the last book of the Old Testament in this Bible blog. Just one book to go, Revelation.

The name Malachi means "my messenger". Some have thought that this was purely a title and not the actual name of the prophet, but it seems best to treat it as a name as all other prophet books were by a named prophet, and names had much more meaning then than they do now.

Malachi was probably a contemporary of Nehemiah and Ezra. Zerubbabel had completed the temple in 516 BC. Nehemiah had returned to Jerusalem in 444 BC to oversee the rebuilding of the walls. He also taught the Law, focusing on helping the poor, avoiding mixed marriages, keeping the Sabbath, bringing tithes and offerings.  In 433BC Nehemiah returned to Persia but then returned again only to find that Jerusalem had once again fallen in to sin. Tithes, intermarriage and the sabbath were all being abused. Malachi addresses many of these concerns. So we see again that prophets were not otherworldly mystics, but were closely related to current events.

The central theme of the book is that the Lord will return both in judgement and with blessing. There is instruction for people to repent and to obey the Lord, and of encouragement for those who remained faithful.

He addresses a time when there was little faith and much disobedience. In such times it can be very difficult to be a faithful follower of the Lord as things can seem very discouraging at times. Malachi provides vital teaching for those living in such times.

Esther 9:20-10:3 - Defeat turned to victory

The festival of Purim was now established. It was a time when utter defeat was turned into complete victory, sorrow was turned into joy. Probably, like me, you find the vengeance and blood shed hard to take, but we should not let this blind us to the way that God has worked. For His work in all our lives is to transform situations, and to transform us. There were plots against the Jews, but these were turned upon their enemies instead. Many today make plots against the Jews, but they will ultimately fail. The enemy makes plots against us, but he too will fail.

Mordecai was then promoted to high office in the kingdom, just as Joseph and Daniel before him had been.

Esther 8-9:19 - Vengeance

Esther and Mordecai now gain from the death of Haman, Esther receiving  his estate and Mordecai the signet ring.

The matter of the decree to kill all the Jews had not yet been dealt with, so Esther pleads with the king to rescind that decree. So Mordecai was given the right to override the earlier instruction to kill the Jews. In fact it went somewhat further than this, giving the Jews the right to defend themselves and to attack their enemies.

So the Jews rejoiced and many people became Jews as well (8:17). The emphasis in chapter 9 is on how there was a complete reversal of what looked like happening. In our own lives we need to be careful of thinking we can predict the future, for so often we do, and it is usually a bad future that we predict. Instead we should live our lives in ever increasing trust in the Lord.

In the midst of this many enemies were killed. This is actually a final fulfilment of the command given in Exodus to destroy the Amalekites (Ex 17:14), but note also the refusal to take any plunder from them.

Things get increasingly bloodthirsty in v 13. In v16 many enemies were killed.

Esther 7 - Hoisted by his own petard

Worse was yet to come for Haman. This was some banquet, "as they were drinking on the second day". Then the king asked Esther what her request was. 

Esther then asks the king to spare her life, and that of all her people. Note how she phrases the question in an intelligent way, putting herself first, knowing she had favour with the king, then mentioning her people. Jesus said we are to be as innocent as doves and and as wise as a serpent (Matt 10:16). Being a Christian does not mean being stupid.

The king then wants to know who caused this to happen, and Haman is now well and truly hoisted on his own petard.

Haman pleaded with Esther for mercy but only succeeded in getting himself in more trouble. So he was impaled on the device he had erected to kill Mordecai.