August 29, 2023
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Malachi? Here’s today’s reading:
Malachi 1 (NIV)
1 A prophecy: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.
Israel Doubts God’s Love
2“I have loved you,” says the Lord.
“But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’
“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob,…..Continue Reading
This chapter God clearly defines His expectations for His people through Malachi. It shows the kind of slippery slope people have been on in their actions toward God. They are a predestined people by God’s choice and design and that was being taken for granted much like many of us do even today. We can never lose sight of the respect and reverence we should have for God. We should never become so familiar that we forget just all He has done for us and that should motivate us to always give our best to him.
The people question God’s love for them.
At this point the temple has been rebuilt, but they bring profane offerings.
They bring their damaged offerings to the Lord.
Then they ask ‘In what way have we despised Your name?’
“We brought you offerings.”
God asks if that is what they would bring to the elite among them (governors).
They are gas-lighting God.
“Yet Jacob I have loved;
But Esau I have hated,”
(this is not about election to salvation, it is about God choosing the line of the Messiah.)
God chose to bless Jacob…and His plan was/is to bless the nations through that “seed”.
“My name shall be great among the Gentiles;
In every place incense shall be offered to My name,
And a pure offering;
For My name shall be great among the nations,”
Says the Lord of hosts.”
“For I am a great King,”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“And My name is to be feared among the nations.”
Malachi 1
For decades, as a Christian, I had been taught, that the passage, “Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated” was proof positive and irrefutable, that before the twins were born, God condemned one to hell, and the other to heaven, predestined by God’s sovereignty, before the world began. No possible way for one to be saved, and there is no possible way for the other to refuse or resist.
That was as I believed, until I read it carefully quite some years ago. This passage was not said at any time before they were born, as a predictive prophesy, but over a thousand years later, as a matter of current condition, after they lived their separate lives. Esau’s descendants departed from God. Jacob stayed with God. That is where they were as Malachi penned these sacred words.
Romans 9, in context, conveys the truth quite well. God calls everyone, that is EVERYONE to follow Him. Before they were born, God said the elder shall serve the younger, vs 12. That verse in no way condemns one or exalts the other, it is a matter of fact. The elect of God choose God. To prove the point of election, it stands sure, God says of Jacob & Esau, that which we read in verse 13, out of Malachi. Esau did not elect God, Jacob did.
God predestined all mankind, before the world began that they should live with Him without blame (Eph 1:4 says we should be, not we definitely without fail will be). Read Eph 1. It is as God intended in Genesis.
Just sharing, I may be the only one in my Christian fellowship that sees Malachi this way. That is okay. No offense intended, just an honest perspective, right or wrong, presented for your consideration! Comments appreciated. Peace, -gy
Sorry it took so long for me to approve this Gordon
Malachi is believed to have ministered in the fifth century B.C. about 100 years after Cyrus had issued the decree in 538 B.C. which permitted Jews to return from exile to Judah. —-Most likely in Malachi`s day the wall of Jerusalem was being rebuilt or had been completed by Nehemiah`s crew. [ The Bible Knowledge Commentary] Most scholars agree that the book of Malachi was written around 450–430 B.C. Apparently the Jewish people had again fallen back into sin. The priests who should had been doing right were offering defective sacrifices against what God had commanded them. Them serving the Lord was a burden to them. God loved them but they didn`t love Him. The verses 2 and 3 speak of God`s love for Jacob and His hated of Edom. The reference that I looked up explains it very well. [ The Hebrew words for loved and hated refer not to God`s emotions but to His choice of one over the other for a covenant relationship. Gen. 29;31-35, and Deut. 21;15,17, and Luke 14;26. Both these nations sinned but God`s promise was to the Jewish nation. They were to be a light to the rest of the nations but kept failing. That includes us. We are to be light to this unsaved world representing Jesus. Matthew 5;16 [Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.]
Here in Malachi 1, God’s “hatred” of Esau is only in relative terms of His love for Jacob, used to reenforce His love for Israel. But God also makes war against the proud and so as Esau turned his back on God and his inheritance, God therefore sets Himself against him. But God desires all people to come to salvation and it is up to us what we do with His efforts to reveal Himself and draw us to Himself. Yet even though God loves the Jews, they are not honoring Him. He is not even getting their second best in terms of the offerings they are giving and the priests are leading the way in compromising the standards that God laid down for what sacrifices were acceptable. It really is a lesson for all of us not to be familiar with the love God has for us. It is easy to slip into patterns of giving God less and not regarding Him the way we should because of His unconditional, deep love for us. And yet that love should cause us to give more of ourselves to Him and to trust Him with more as well. To even think that God most wants us to spend time with Him, to share our lives with Him and allow Him to fulfill His purposes for and through us. Let’s watch out for every inclination to be independent of Him and use it to draw closer….
Malachi 1
God does not like cheats who keep the best things for themselves and give the scraps to him as an offer of sacrifice. Let us be careful not do that when we offer up our tithes and gifts to him. Let us always remember to give our very best “for the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.” Psalms 95:3