Malachi 2:11,12 - Judah has been unfaithful

2:11

In Ezra 9:1,2 we find Ezra dealing very firmly with those Jews who had intermarried. To our modern western ears we find this a little offensive, so let’s look a little more deeply to understand the situation. Marrying a “daughter of a foreign god” was not just a matter of a Jew falling in love with someone who was not a Jew. First, it was often done for economic reasons. In order to join some of the trade guilds it was necessary to intermarry. This would also involve divorcing an existing Hebrew wife. So this was not a “nice” practice at all. Then it would also involve the Jew getting involved in the worship of the false idols that the new wife worshipped. So it was a wholly destructive practice, and Judah had indeed been faithless and did profane the sanctuary of the Lord. It was an “abomination”, this is one of the strongest terms used in the Bible for unacceptable practices.

2:12

Malachi then declares his desire that the Lord cuts off from the “tents of Jacob” any descendant of the man who does these things. Ie there is complete cutting off of this person and all he does from Israel. The man was still pretending to worship God, maybe even deluded into thinking he actually was worshipping God, when all he was doing was profaning the sanctuary. We are called to holiness. The warning is against mixture, and today in the church we should be equally wary of mixture. We too readily take on board the world’s ideas.

2 John 1:3,4 - Grace, mercy and peace

1:3

Grace and peace feature in the introductions of Paul’s letters, but there it is usually “Grace and peace to you”. Here John says “Grace, mercy and peace will be with us”. He is asking them to take action in the way they responded to travelling false teachers. This might not have been an easy thing to do, but John is assuring them that if they do this the grace, mercy and peace of God will be with them. This is so important. We often shy away from difficult decisions, difficult courses of action out of fear and out of an awareness of our own weakness and unworthiness. But in Christ we succeed not because of our own goodness or ability, but because of the Christ’s goodness. It is because of the grace of God that we will succeed, that our actions will be fruitful. It also almost certain that we will get things wrong, or are in a difficult position at least partly because of our own failings and mistakes. We receive mercy from God. And while the decisions we have to make might be difficult, we will receive peace from God. The gospel leads us to be active.

And this grace, mercy and peace comes from God the Father and the Son (more evidence, if more was needed, that the early church always saw Christ as being God) in truth and love. This is grace, mercy and peace is no impersonal thing, but a personal gift of love to us from God. Truth and love are two of John’s great themes, see 1 John.

1:4

John then commends them, though it is only a partial commendation. He is pleased that some of them are walking in truth. John does not simply mean that they were honest, but that some of them were walking in the light of the gospel. However, the implication is that some of them were not. We should note that it was true even in New Testament times for churches to be a mixed bag, with some walking in truth, and others either lukewarm or walking in falsehood. And walking in truth is not an optional extra. Indeed, the very phrase “walking in truth” should indicate that it is the only way we should live, but it is also a command from God.

Malachi 2:9,10 - Did not one God create us?

2:9

When priests, ministers or preachers depart from God’s truth they do so for various reasons. Some may do so in order to get money. Today this is most true of so-called prosperity gospel preachers. Perhaps the most common reason today is to avoid being seen to go against the prevailing tide, to court some sort of academic acceptability or popularity. However, this will not work. Here the Lord says that He will cause the priests to be despised and humiliated. And what do we see with the liberal “church”? Has it increased their congregations? Does the world come rushing to learn from them (what would be the point of that when they have merely learnt from the world)? No, their congregations are dwindling inexorably, and people know that they have nothing worthwhile to say.

2:10

It seems that Malachi is now speaking himself to the priests, or whoever else was listening. He is urging them to realise that they owe their very being to God. This was particularly true of Israel, for the nation existed only because God had created her, and rescued her on many occasions, most notably when he took them out of Egypt. But it is actually true of all of us, for we did not create ourselves. So Malachi asks them why they are unfaithful to the covenant (the Law), and why they do harm to each other.

Desperate Faith!

In Mark 10:46-52 we read of the healing of blind Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was around and cried out loudly, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”. Look at the contrasting reactions of the crowds, and of Jesus. The crowd told him to shut up. Who did he think he was? However, the man was not to be deterred. So why was he not deterred? There were two factors, and these were working together. First, there was his condition, being blind. This was highly debilitating and he was desperate, or at least very keen, to be healed. The second was that he had faith in Jesus. When these two things work together we will act in ways that others cannot understand, nor will they be able to stop us! There is a strength to being desperate and full of faith. It is also why the world will not overcome the church. A world without God is a desperate place to live in, there is a loss of all sorts of things, including freedom and tolerance. Indeed, we see this happening in the West at present. Have you noticed how utterly unforgiving and unmerciful the world is? No matter how hard the world tries, there are always people who still have faith in the Lord. Many a society has tried to squash this, but none have succeeded. The world, by its nature, produces desperate people. The Holy Spirit produces faith in people, and the world cannot stop the Spirit.

In contrast to the crowd, Jesus welcomed the man. Jesus delights in people who have faith in Him. And, of course, Jesus healed the man. In fact, He said “your faith has healed you”. So if you are feeling desperate, do not listen to the voices around you, but call out to Jesus in faith. The world may tell us to shut up, but Jesus will welcome us with open arms.

2 John 1:1,2 - The truth that abides in us

1:1

“The elder” is the term that John uses to refer to himself. He was quite old at this stage, and it is interesting that he does not refer to himself as an apostle. “The lady and her children” is taken as John referring to the church he is writing to (we don’t know which church). He reminds the church that they were chosen by God, and that is indeed the status of us all. He then says that he loves the church “in truth”, and goes on to add that all who know the truth love the church. He says this because he is going to be warning them against travelling false teachers.

1:2

John lays a great emphasis on the truth, as he did in his gospel and in his first letter. The truth lives in us and will be with us forever. This is a very different approach to life than that taken by many today, even, indeed especially, in the church. Jesus is the truth, the gospel is truth and is true. Yet so often people in the church seek to subvert the truth, or talk about “your truth” and “my truth”. God’s truth is the only truth that matters, the only truth that there is.

Complete notes on Zechariah

Complete notes on the prophet Zechariah are now available on Dundee Believer.

2 and 3 John - Introduction

Introduction

2 and 3 John are the two shortest books in the New Testament, both having the form of letters. The language and teaching bears a lot of similarities to that found in 1 John, and common authorship is a reasonable assumption. Despite their shortness, there is attestation or allusion to the letters from very early on in church history. Ireneus links 2 John with 1 John, and Clement of Alexandria knows of more than one Johannine letter. No one ever attributed the letters to anyone other than John the son of Zebedee.

The date of the letters is tied up with whether one takes them as being written before John’s gospel, or being written after the gospel. Most take the latter view, and that gives them a date of roughty 80-85 AD.

The letters do not state their specific destination, though 3 John does state the recipient, who is probably not one of the various Gaius’s mentioned in the New Testament. The region of Ephesus is taken as the most likely destination. 2 John seems to have the purpose of warning the church against travelling preachers who were not preaching the gospel. This is also timely today, when people have access to so much in the way of YouTube and podcasts. Some is good, but not all of it, and some is dangerous nonsense. 3 John was warning against a specific individual who seemed to be accruing power for himself. That is also very timely for our day as there are numerous instances of this sort of thing happening.