Voices: Not-so-Minor Prophets: Malachi

The book of Malachi is the final book in the collection commonly known as the Minor Prophets. Even more, it occupies the final position in the Protestant canon of the Old Testament. Despite its important location within the canon, the book itself remains relatively obscure to most readers of Scripture.

There are texts commonly cited from the book—such as on divorce (2:16) and tithing (3:10)—but most of the book remains largely absent from our preaching and teaching, to our own detriment.

At first glance, the book seems so foreign to us. References to temple worship, sacrifices, priestly instruction and “daughters of a foreign god,” not to mention a coming messenger, may challenge our homiletical skills in allowing these texts to be the word of God for the people of God, but indeed they are.

The lingering crisis

This short book is a response to a much greater crisis that plagued the post-exilic community. Following the Babylonian exile, the community returned in 538 B.C. with great hopes for a fully restored Jerusalem. Instead, they returned to the same scene some left nearly 50 years earlier; destruction and disarray was all around.

Upon return, rather than celebration and rebuilding, the community was faced not only with the destruction of their city, but with the more pressing realities of drought, famine and external threats that began to imperil their existence. And this crisis lingered. So did their questions about the faithfulness of God (1:2).

The book of Malachi reflects the challenge of faith in an age of despair for the post-exilic community in and around Jerusalem. The troubling social, political and historical circumstances, coupled with their seemingly dashed hope for a fully restored community, led them to consider the unthinkable, that faithfulness to God was futile (3:14).

This lingering crisis is not limited to the post-exilic community alone. We also live in an age of despair, and we also know something of the challenge of faith. In quiet moments when we are completely alone, perhaps we also may start to wonder whether faithfulness to God is futile.

It is because our time looks so much like their time that we need to hear Malachi again, to hear its full witness to the One worthy of our worship.

The covenantal Faithfulness of God

The book of Malachi is comprised of six sections, sometimes referred to as “disputations.” These texts are framed as debates or contestations between the community and God concerning pressing theological claims (1:2-5; 1:6-2:9; 2:10-16; 2:17-3:5; 3:6-12; 3:13-4:6).

To appreciate the richness of the prophetic message, we must resist the urge to lift out selected verses from within the book. Instead, we must jump into the fray of these contested conversations and wrestle with the larger theological claims as they unfold.

For example, the opening disputation (1:2-5) directly confronts the community with the very claim they seem to hold in doubt: “‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord.” To which the community responds, “‘How have you loved us?’”

The concept of love invoked here, however, stands at considerable distance from any sort of overly emotional sense. In the ancient world, the notion of “love” had strong covenantal overtones. In essence, God is declaring: “I have chosen you. You are my people,” while the community’s response seems to hold that declaration in question.

What that community needed to know was God still says, “Yes” to his people, even when circumstances challenged such thinking, even when expectations did not unfurl as anticipated.

This opening claim in Malachi casts a long shadow over the remainder of the book, one that should inform all that follows. God’s covenantal faithfulness remains unchanged, even when our own circumstances do change.

The present God, worthy of worship

Because this God still says, “Yes,” God is deserving of honor and holy reverence (1:6). Yet as the second disputation (1:6-2:9) suggests, the community failed in this regard.

The improper sacrifices reported in the second disputation are particularly egregious. The problem is not simply that the people “failed to follow directions.” They failed to recognize in whose presence they were.

If one thinks God no longer is faithful, or worse yet, no longer present, then any sacrifice—blemished or not—is sufficient. But because the God who says, “Yes” is indeed the “Great King” (1:14) who is fully committed and fully present to his people, then he is due our faithful worship, even in an age of despair.

The trustworthy God

The two disputations likely most well-known—divorce (2:10-16) and tithing (3:6-12)—address another issue that reflects the challenge of faith in an age of despair: trust. If the community no longer was sure of God’s faithfulness, and if the community worshipped as though God was not present, then how in fact could they trust this God with the future?

Upon closer examination of both texts and the larger context, we discover both actions—divorcing the wives of their youth and failing to tithe—likely were driven by the financial and economic exigencies of their day.

They divorced their wives to marry “daughters of foreign gods” to generate social and economic benefits, and they likely withheld the tithe in fear of an unknown future. Because they did not trust God, they felt the need to secure the future based on their own efforts alone.

Like Malachi’s audience, the broken structures in and around our lives often expose a much deeper level of brokenness, the kind of brokenness that tempts us with thoughts of self-sufficiency and faithlessness.

The God who is coming still

The fourth disputation (3:1-5) and the appendix (4:5-6) remind us, in an age of despair, there is a hope that remains, because there is a God who is coming still. This hope is intended to engender faithfulness even as our faithfulness is an expression of that very hope.

W. Dennis Tucker Jr. is professor of Christian Scriptures at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.