Intro to Malachi

For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts. 
Malachi 1:11 

If you have never seen the show The Office, this reference might be lost on you. But just like Dwight Schrute’s promotion to Office Manager and marriage to Angela (anyone know what her last name was) was the perfect ending to The Office, Malachi is a very fitting close to the Old Testament Scriptures. It not only directs worshippers towards living a life of holiness, but also builds the expectation in the readers of a future messenger who will “prepare the way” before the Lord (3:1). Malachi helps to sort of close out the Old Testament while at the same time transitioning and building an expectation for us in the New Testament. Apart from his name, we know very little about Malachi; this seems to hone our focus in on the message that God is delivering through Him as opposed to the man himself. The outline for this prophetic book is not surprising since it follows the same three-fold structure we have seen in all of the other prophetic writings of indictment, judgment, and future hope. However, the style that Malachi is written in is very unique as it is almost a prophetic disputation between God and the people.

For example, God speaks in verse 2 saying that He loves them, and the response of the people is, but how? In verse 6, the Lord tells them that they have despised His name and again the response is, how? In verse 7, he indicts them for having polluted the altar. And the response is the same as before, how? In all of the indictments we see this back and forth exchange occurring throughout the book (1:12-13; 2:14,17;3:7,8,13-15) which reveals to us that these people are very religious, but their religiosity is not pleasing to the Lord. Why? Simply put, their hearts are far from God, they were mistreating one another, and they were withholding the tithe from the temple. You could say that they were worse than the Pharisees in Jesus' day since they not only were inwardly dead, but outwardly they were rebellious against God’s commands. The judgment that God pronounces on them are curses to be fulfilled at the coming day of the Lord. And after this message of judgment, there is a hopeful  for those who fear the Lord (3:16).

Despite their wickedness, God still reaffirmed His love for them (1:2) and promises a coming messenger who will prepare the way for the Lord’s coming. At the fulfillment of this promise God's people will be able to offer up offerings that will be pleasing to God because it will be given through the blood of Jesus Christ. As we wait for the coming of our Lord a second time, let us not be guilty of the sin of the false worshippers in Malachi’s time. May we be those who fear the Lord and worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Grace and Peace,
Alex Galvez

To never miss an article, click on the "Subscribe" button at the top of the blog page (https://aogalvez.blogspot.com/)
****************************************************
These articles follow the current Bible Reading plan for Overflow Ministries. If you would like to join the reading plan, simply download the plan here: Overflow Reading Plan

You may follow Overflow Ministries @ https://faithlife.com/overflowtx/activity
or on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/OverflowChurchTX/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Balance

Image
"For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." 1 Timothy 4:8 (NIV) This past weekend (Month even) has been a very busy one. It often happens that when life ramps up, we cut the unimportant things out of our lives in order to accomplish the tasks we identify as most critical. To all my followers, I want to apologize for my having cutting this portion of my life out for a period of time and I will do my best to have more consistency. A years ago, the United States Army deployed a digital "fitness" test to its soldiers and certain respondents received a message that read, "Spiritual fitness may be an area of difficulty. You may lack a sense of meaning and purpose in your life. At times, it is hard for you to make sense of what is happening to you and to others around you. You may not feel connected to something larger than yourself. You may question your
Read more

Satisfaction

Image
“…for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” Philippians 4:11b (NIV) This has been a very busy month for me in terms of traveling around. I returned home from Brazil after a long three weeks and, after two days, I now find myself back in a hotel in the great city of Duncan, Oklahoma. Although it is slightly inconvenient to me, in terms of my schedule for studying the word, prayer, and working out to live in a hotel for almost a full month, I have found great comfort in the words from the apostle Paul. A man who has murderous attempts on his life, been imprisoned on multiple occasions, beaten up, shipwrecked three times, and bitten by a snake was able to find a state of contentedness regardless of what situation he was in. Talk about finding complete joy. This is the same joy that the beloved disciple wrote of many times for other believers to embrace. And this is a joy that over the years I have learned to develop and enjoy. That no matter what situation I find
Read more

Light

Image
“And this is the message which we have heard from him and announce unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5 (ASV) Darkness is not a real thing. Cold is also not a real thing. They are just words that we have made up to define the conditions of an environment or state of existence at a specific period or periods of time. What do I mean then when I say that they are not real things? Well, what I mean is that the darkness that we see (or cannot see because of) is not because it is overwhelming, but because it lacks light. Darkness is the absence of light. When light comes into existence, because light is something real, darkness is expelled. That’s the same with cold. Cold is simply the absence of heat. It is not that it is cold and then at some point it shifts to being hot. It is simply that the heat that exists is too miniscule that it cannot bring warmth to anything. In verse five, we read that God is light, but not a weak source of light
Read more