BEMA 69: Malachi — Q&A

Transcription Status

17 Jan 23 — Initial public release

11 Oct 22 — Transcript approved for release

Malachi — Q&A

Brent Billings: This is the BEMA Podcast with Marty Solomon. I’m his co-host, Brent Billings. Today, we hear the message of Malachi, seeing how he utilizes a question and answer format to prophetically speak to the people of God.

Marty Solomon: Here we are at Malachi—got one more book after this. You could call this maybe the last of our prophetic voices. We got the book of Esther still to come, which is not considered a prophetic voice in Jewish thought or our Gentile Bibles. Malachi, we have a listener that’s been waiting for us to get to Malachi for months. The last time she was waiting for us to get to a book, we got to a discussion group, and then she blew our minds with what she had found.

I’m a little nervous to actually record this podcast because Emily’s going to show up and she’s going to give me material that I should have put in the podcast. She’s been holding out on us. Looking forward to that. Anyway, here’s Malachi. The frustrations and struggles that we dealt with in the remnant we’ve been looking at—can we remember the remnant voices we’ve encountered, Brent? We had…

Brent: Ezra-Nehemiah.

Marty: Ezra-Nehemiah. Before that?

Brent: 4 Isaiah.

Marty: 4 Isaiah… Ezra-Nehemiah…

Brent: Haggai.

Marty: Haggai.

Brent: Zechariah.

Marty: Zechariah. We’ve seen frustrations and struggles in a lot of ways. We’ve seen prophets trying to give them hope to persevere through that, but those struggles spoken, especially in Haggai and Zechariah, they eventually boil over. Those frustrations find their fruition in the decades that follow the restoration of Jerusalem. To put it simply, the people are disappointed that things didn’t turn out the way they had dreamed. You can imagine being the people of God coming back from Persia and you have all these great aspirations. I’m not trying to be too clever here, but you’re going to make Jerusalem great again. You’re going to go back, you’re going to rebuild everything.

Brent: Are you sure you don’t want to go back and say that differently?

Marty: It’s just such a phrase. It’s just sitting there. We always have these aspirations. They don’t come back and restore a glorious kingdom. God didn’t give them all of their land and sovereignty back. In fact, their experience was quite the opposite. What appeared to be the turning of the tables with the kingdom of Persia, happened to become a simple reshuffling of the items on the table. Persia let them go home, but they still found themselves under the boot of empire.

In fact, as Walter Brueggemann will point out in that wonderful book we’ve recommended before, Out of Babylon, he’s going to point out the rule and stretch and reign of Persia actually stretched further and lasted longer than Babylon did. It might not have felt as oppressive in their methods, but it was actually a longer, a wider, and a deeper rule than the Babylonian rule. Some of the early oppression got better only to be replaced by a much more subtle oppression that’s harder to identify and fight.

Instead of being physically persecuted and militarily dominated, they found themselves being enticed into a system that controlled them from the inside out. Instead of being forced into physical servitude, you’re being forced into a cultural servitude that destroys your will to subvert the idolatry that’s all around you. We should be able to relate to that. On some level, it’s harder to actually fight the idolatry that’s present in our Western American culture than it is to fight outright idolatry because it’s more subtle and hidden and internal.

Instead of being robbed of your material possessions, you are robbed of your identity as partners of God. The brave new world isn’t all it was cracked up to be because the brave new world rarely is. The people mourn this loss in their situation. They begin to lose hope and lose the determination and inspiration that’s needed to subvert the ways of empire all around them. Their struggles to walk the path continue. I would assume that we could relate to this if you’ve ever found yourself wanting to go back to the good ol’ days.

I’ve taught this for a while. You’ve heard me teach this years ago. You can’t go backwards, you can only go forward. Yet it’s one of the things that we struggle with all the time. I found myself even this week, this very week, struggling with this. I just want to go back to how it was four years ago in this particular situation. I just want to go back, because boy, wasn’t it great then? One of the things we can learn through the biblical narrative and just being honest about our own walks and our own personal narratives is it really wasn’t as great as we remember.

In fact, Rabbi Fohrman, we’ve used him before, he had a parashat teaching years ago. It was his teaching on the importance of what happens when we begin to lose hope. Is hope rational or is hope irrational? He brought up this really good question that I kept in my notes because I thought it was just so good. Do we imagine new tomorrows or do we lie to ourselves about a better past? That’s good. Do we imagine, do we dream about new tomorrows or do we lie to ourselves about a better past?

I have some friends who I think get stuck in this cycle. They lived in one context and when I knew them in that context, it was miserable and it was horrible. They couldn’t wait to move on to the next new thing. They moved on to the next new thing and the next new thing wasn’t like the old thing, and it was actually hard. Then they remember the old thing like, oh man, boy, weren’t those the days. Sometimes when I get the chance to talk to them, like, “You were miserable in those days. Those days were horrible. You couldn’t wait to get out of those days, but now it’s like, ‘oh man, wasn’t that the ticket.’”

We do this all the time, longing for a yesterday that really wasn’t what we remember it to be. I have realized that I have often lied to myself about a past that never was. I begin to think the good old days were far better than they actually were. I’ve noticed that when I begin to believe this, I start to live much more poorly in the present. I get a lot more cynical. I get a lot more jaded. I get a lot more bitter and angry. I fall into bad attitudes and bad habits.

Quite frankly, I find myself beginning to fall into sins of the past as well. I can find myself becoming the person—not the good person of my past, but the person that struggled in my past. I believe this is what’s happening to God’s people in the prophecy of Malachi on some level. I don’t know about the nuances, but I feel like this is the context of the prophet here. Malachi has been sent, or somebody has. Malachi literally means—do you know, Brent? What does Malachi mean?

Brent: I don’t know.

Marty: Malachi just means “my messenger.” It’s likely that it might not even have been a proper name, but we don’t know. Maybe his name was Malachi, which means “my messenger.” Malachi shows up to shake the people out of their foolish nostalgia. Malachi does this by painting the picture of a dialogue between God and his people. They have a thorough Q&A interview process. We haven’t really been pointing out our images by the way, in our more recent podcast here. The image of—let’s see, let’s go back to 4 Isaiah. What was our image, Brent?

Brent: Servant.

Marty: That was 3 Isaiah.

Brent: Oh.

Marty: 4 Isaiah.

Brent: 4 Isaiah. Was it hope?

Marty: Yes, hope. Perfect. Then we had Ezra-Nehemiah. We said that was… It starts with a P, ends with an -assionate.

Brent: Passionate leadership.

Marty: Passionate leadership, yes. Now we’re talking. Then after, let’s see, Ezra-Nehemiah, we talked about Haggai, the image there?

Brent: Build.

Marty: Build. You got to build! In fact, I always put an exclamation point on it. I write it out, build! Then we talked about Zechariah, which is all about…?

Brent: Apocalyptic literature.

Marty: Yes, apocalyptic literature. The phrase, the image, whatever you want to call it, the nugget for Malachi is going to be “Q&A” because the structure that Malachi chooses to use in his prophecy is this dialogue. He’s writing as if God and God’s people are having this dialogue. God’s going to make an accusation that people are going to respond to with a question. Like, “What? How could you say that? What do you mean in that accusation? How could that be true?”

Then God’s going to answer that. He’s going to be like, “Well, this is how.” Then God’s going to say, “By the way, I have this against you.” God’s people are going to be like, “What, how could that be true?” God’s going to say, “This is how it’s true.” There’s this ongoing dialogue. You have a section from Chapter 1. Is that correct?

Brent: I do. A son honors his father and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me? Says the Lord Almighty. It is you priests who show contempt for my name.

Marty: God says, “Listen, it’s a pretty straightforward idea. A father at least gets respect and honor from his kids. I’m your father, so where’s my respect? You guys don’t respect me at all.” Then they respond how, Brent?

Brent: You ask, “How have we shown contempt for your name?” By offering defiled food on my altar, but you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’ By saying that the Lord’s table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor. Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you? Says the Lord Almighty.

Marty: Again, what’s the context of this? I think the people of God are struggling. They’re rooting for the good old days. They’re frustrated that they couldn’t build the future that they wanted. They’re not even offering unblemished sacrifices. They’re falling into this lackadaisical—I think of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus offering common fire. Here they are just settling in and God’s like, “Where’s my honor, where’s my respect? Would your governor accept these gifts? If he wouldn’t accept these gifts, why would I accept these gifts?”

You can see them falling into this, “Oh, well, it’s not as good as he wanted it to be, so whatever.” This apathetic approach to their worship.

Brent: It’s amazing when you look at the rest of Jewish history. The lengths that they went to, to offer perfect, spotless sacrifice. To think that this is what they’re doing, it’s like, “What? How’s that even possible?”

Marty: Absolutely. Hugely committed to the purity of their sacrifice, but here a blind goat. “Man, who cares. It’s not really as good as we wanted it to be anyway.”

Brent: A goat’s a goat, whatever.

Marty: A goat’s a goat. Temple is a temple; path is a path. Yes, but you got another passage from Chapter 2.

Brent: Another thing you do, you flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her. Though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.

Marty: Oh, here, that goes with Hosea there. Again, Q&A. God’s got an accusation. The people say, “What are you talking about?” God explains it. Then you got another one from chapter three, I believe.

Brent: “I, the Lord, do not change, so you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors, you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me and I will return to you,” says the Lord almighty. You ask, “How are we to return?” Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me but you ask, “How are we robbing you?” In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse, your whole nation because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. “Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the flood gates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pest from devouring your crops and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty.

“Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord almighty. “You have spoken arrogantly against me,” says the Lord. Yes, you ask, “What have we said against you?” You have said, “It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? Now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly, evildoers prosper. Even when they put God to the test, they get away with it.”

Marty: I think we’ve gotten really used to using this passage as a formulaic approach to whatever, whether it’s giving or tithing or prosperity gospels or anything like that. We make this really formulaic by forgetting the context, because the context of Malachi here is, God’s people are falling into this apathetic—the end of that passage there, “You’ve spoken arrogantly against me.” Like, what in the world have we said against you? He’s like, “You say that following me does nothing. You say that it’s futile to serve God. That’s why you’re not bringing me your tithes. That’s why you’re not bringing me your gifts. That’s why you’re not walking in obedience because you don’t think any of this stuff actually works.”

This is the larger context of this passage here. Not a formula of, if you tithe, God does X, Y, and Z, but this message of when you don’t believe in the promises of God, when you take this apathetic approach to your walk, it has these larger consequences and these larger ramifications. God says, “It doesn’t honor me. It’s not worship. It’s not wholeness.”

Brent: Today, I feel so much like your giving is electronic most of the time. It’s not really much difference in work one way or the other, but these people, they have to travel. If they gather all the resources, they don’t have a lot of—it’s not monetary, so much. It’s usually goods or animals or whatever. You have to get all this stuff together. They’re like, “What? It doesn’t even do any good, so why go to all this effort?”

Marty: Absolutely. A lot I think we can learn. I don’t know if we would typically think of our spiritual work as apathetic, but I think there’s a lot of parallels. Maybe that’s not the right word, but there’s a lot of things to learn from the prophecy of Malachi here. In time, God’s people do hear the message of God’s messenger, Malachi. We are told that they were people who belong to a faithful remnant. Maybe not everybody, but we’re told that there is a faithful remnant. They marked the moment by writing a scroll of remembrance. God marked the moment with a promise that extends to the final chapter of the prophet. Right there in the final chapter, you have a passage there that you can read us.

Brent: Oh, this is actually the end of Chapter 3.

Marty: Chapter three? Okay.

Brent: Let’s see. Verse 16. Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. “On the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty, “they will be my treasured possession.”

Marty: Hearkens back to Exodus, the marriage. I like that.

Brent: I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. You will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.

Marty: Yes. I love the image of this whole prophet that has this Q&A, this dialogue between God and his people. It works like in his prophecy. It’s not one of those hopeless profits of despair where there’s Q&A, but God’s people just refuse to get it. In this case, God has this dialogue, and they go, “Man, okay. That’s right. We’re going to stand up. We’re going to do the right thing.” They write the scroll of remembrance. God responds in kind. This thing closes off with hope like usual.

That day God, once again, had found a partner. Sometimes that partner is simply 7,000 people who haven’t bowed the knee to Baal in the midst of a nation corrupted with idolatry. Sometimes it’s a small group of 20 people who could save a city like Sodom and Gomorrah. Sometimes it’s just a few people serving in the presence of a frustrated nation who are losing hope, who put their names on a scroll and set out to become people of the promise.

I can’t help but read that last line and think about the appropriate place for Malachi in our own world. In a world that is completely frustrated, completely dominated by debate and argument and bifurcated worldviews. In a culture that seems to be beyond hope, we read a prophet like Malachi. There are a few people that put their names on a scroll. It takes a stand to make a difference. It has the ability and the power to change everything. I like that. It’s pretty good stuff. Malachi.

Brent: Q&A.

Marty: You got it.

Brent: This wouldn’t necessarily be the same sort of Q&A as in an accusation and a defense necessarily, but we do like questions. If you have any, we’d like to hear from you.

Marty: Absolutely. Q&A to your heart’s content.

Brent: You can find Marty on Twitter at @martysolomon, and you can find me at @eibcb. If you want to just send us an email, you can go to bemadiscipleship.com, get on the contact page, and send us a message there. That works just as well. Thanks for joining us on the BEMA podcast. We’ll talk to you again soon.