Hi James and Ellen,
Malachi concludes the Bible’s Old Testament’s canonized books. Malachi – having been scribed sometime between 430 B.C. and 400 B.C., is the last accepted prophetic text. Malachi was given the name of the guy who scribed the Malachi Book. The name Malachi means ‘messenger of Yahweh’ or ‘my messenger’. Yahweh was the intimate appellation that Israelite people group guys and gals had for God. Yahweh means ‘He Who causes to be’ and/or ‘I am Who I am’. Before God molded and positioned planet Earth where this interactive, life harboring orb is hung today in His unbounded, interdependent universe, God selected a people group of guys and gals – the Israelite people group guys and gals, to be His specially chosen guys and gals. The Israelite people group guys and gals are also known today as Hebrews and Jews. Because of the timeframe of when Malachi ostensibly scribed his indicting and exhorting communiqué, Malachi is a postexile prophet. In 586 B.C. – or 156 years to 186 years before Malachi scribed – using rhetorical questions, a ‘letter’ that would be labeled his name, God – because of His specially chosen guys and gals continually defying Him by not worshipping only Him, had the Babylonia army take as exiles a large number of His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem and in the land of Judah to their country of Babylonia until the Babylonian Empire’s army was defeated by the Medes and Persian armies. About fifty years before Malachi called out his compatriots who were living in the city of Jerusalem for their sin driven apostasy, a guy by the name of Ezra in 458 B.C. led 1,496 Israelite people group of guys, gals and kids who had been living as exiles in the country of Babylonia, to the city of Jerusalem. the Israelite people group guys and gals – God’s specially chosen guys and gals, made it a priority when they got back to the city of Jerusalem to once again worship only God. By the time when another guy – who was a winetaster by the name of Nehemiah, showed up in in the city of Jerusalem – which was about 25 or so years after Ezra arrived the city of Jerusalem with his contingent of guys, gals and kids, who had a vision and a passion to rebuild the destroyed wall that once encircled the city of Jerusalem, there were already hints that worshipping only God was being put on the back shelf by the guys and gals who were living at this time in the city of Jerusalem. Your grandpaa thinks that there is a possibility that Nehemiah and even Ezra were contemporaries of Malachi.
Malachi is composed of a number of distinct topics called oracles. Malachi begins his four chapter book by rebuking God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem for their unfaithfulness for not following through on the binding vow that they had made when they said that they would worship only God. Malachi does not hesitate to name the Israelite people group’s priests as the culprits for the growing abandonment that was taking place in the city of Jerusalem from only worshipping God. Malachi’s protest against the Israelite people group’s priests was because of how they were dishonoring God through their negligent use of sacrifices. Malachi would go on to censure the Israelite people group’s priests for not faithfully teaching the Torah to God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem. Malachi then singles out an abhorrent living norm that had emerged which had Israelite people group guys divorcing their people group wives so that they could marry foreign gals. Malachi used the Israelite people group’s priests not fulfilling God’s expectations of the position that He had them be in and the Israelite people group’s guys failure to comply to a mandate that He had given them to answer the guys and gals who were complaining about an indifferent God who they saw as being okay with what was happening in the city of Jerusalem to tell them that a time was at hand when God would purify His priests and pronounce judgment on His people. Malachi goes on to tell God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem that repentance would be the only way out for them to escape God’s fury. Malachi encourages his fellow citizens who were living the city of Jerusalem to return again to doing dedicated tithing and to serving other guys and gals. Malachi affirms the promise that God will richly bless each guy and gal who wholeheartedly repents before God of his or her commission and omission sins.
Because of a book that he recently read that Jonathan Cahn wrote that is called The Harbinger, your grandpaa now uses ‘defiance of God’ as a life marker. Because God – using men, made the United
States Constitution’s rights a guarantee, there was an agreed thinking that God is always in control – that when the United States needs help, that God is to be asked for His help. But – just as God’s specially chosen guys and gals began defying God not long after being exiled in the country of Babylonia, guys and gals who were living in the United States who were calling themselves Christ-followers began defying God. The critical mass of guys, gals and kids who are living today in the United States have relegated believing in God to an ignorant religiosity that thinks that the Bible should be read and taught in schools, that praying in schools should be allowed, that it is not okay for mas to kill their embryos, that it is not okay to be promiscuous and that Christ-follower fellowships are to care for the sick, orphans, widows, poor, etc.
Malachi