Malachi 2:1-3 Faithful Priests
Audience
1 "And now, O priests, this command is for you. Obviously the message of Malachi was addresses to the priest of his day. The priest had two primary responsibilities. First, they were to coordinate the proper execution of the sacrifices and offerings to God as a mediator between God and the people (Mal 1:6-14). Second, they were to consul the people by teaching them and setting them a Godly example to follow. They were “messengers” (7) to the people of what God had revealed in his word and mentors of how to live according to God’s word. (Mal 2:1-9). If the priest had done their job and taught and applied the Law of Moses, there would not have been such a great need for the prophets to recall the people to obedience. However in Malachi’s day the priest were neglecting both aspects of their ministry: sacrifices and teaching (Peter Adam) Malachi seeks to bring the priest and the people back into obedience to God’s word by contrasting the failure of the priests in his day (2, 8- 9) with the successes of Levi and the early priests (5-7) (Piper). Priest existed for a time and place in God’s plan for his kingdom. The New Testament never uses the term priest to describe a pastor or elder in the church. There is no official priesthood in the New Testament church. (Piper). The original priesthood is no longer necessary in either of their two responsibilities. Jesus became our high Priest to lead us into the presence of God. He was both a sacrifice for us to God and a representative for us to come to God. (Heb 7:23-25). Christ is now the one and only priest between us and God. The reason for this is that his sacrifice was final and his life is indestructible. (Heb 9:11-12) So the Old Testament priesthood is replaced once and for all by the priestly ministry of Jesus—the offering of himself as the final sacrifice for sin, and the interceding for us today in heaven. This means that Christ has opened the way for all of us to come directly to God through him. We do not need any human mediator. We can walk with Christ—our high priest—right into the Holiest Place where God dwells and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4:16). There is no longer a need for priest to oversee and to offer sacrifices because Jesus is the once for all sacrifice (Piper) The second function, of teaching the word, still exist in the New Testament age.
The Church is identified as a holy priesthood (1 Pet 2:5), A royal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9), and by Christ as a kingdom of priest (Rev 1:6). As “priest” there still remains the responsible to seek the word and share the word. This responsibility primarily falls upon those whom God calls and appoints to lead the church (Eph 4:11-12, 1 Tim 3:2, 5:17; Titus 1:9). Though the leaders have a specific call on their life to lead the church, everyone believer should have a deep responsibility for all souls that are in their sphere of influence (Simeon). Thus, as “priest”, believers are also the audience for Malachi’s prophecy.
Affirmation
Malachi gives four principles to emulate for those who desire to be a faithful priest
1) Listen to God’s Word 2 If you will not listen, 6 True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. One great danger to the pastoral ministry (and all believers) is that the voice of God in Scripture may be drowned out by other voices. One of the most frightening things in the ministry is the possibility that one day we may wake up and read the sacred page and hear nothing from God. God has appointed preachers in the church not simply to lead discussions, not simply to explain problems, not simply analyze texts, but to herald a message to his people. And you can't herald what you don't hear. The true minister of the Word has a Word from God; he is the messenger of the Lord (Piper) We must cherish and communicate the very words of God. The timeless truth of the ages. Truth without any mixture of error-Infallible and inerrant. We must study it to gain every crumb of truth it contains. We as priest, must painfully and with tenacity agonize over the scripture until the truth immerges. As Priest of old, so we are the guardians of the truth (Smith) to treasure above all and tell it to the generations to come. We must hold to what you hear and herald what we have heard. The leader must be a perpetual student. To feed others you must be well fed yourself. We don’t want to give people “defiled” food or “thin gruel” (Boice) They had closed ears. What areas or aspects of your life, that when God starts to speak to you about them through his Word, through your conscience, through someone else, you’re like, “I don’t want to hear that. Don’t talk to me about—fill in the blank—money, relationships, attitude, sex, theology. Whatever it is, don’t talk to me about that. I don’t want to hear about that. I don’t have ears for that”? (Driscoll). If you can’t discern God’s voice you can’t determine His direction. We know God’s voice through his word. God voice will always agree with what he has already spoken in his reveled word.
2) Love God’s honor 2 if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, 5 It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. The issue is . . . whether there lies on his heart a burden to see God glorified. (Piper) The fear mentioned here is a reverential fear, an “awe” and amazement of majesty of God. All things spiritual begin with such reverence, and God’s priests need to cultivate it more than anything else (Boice). God is honored (glorified) when we take, “it”, his word, (his commands) to heart with a deep desire to walk in obedience to his voice. You must seriously apply your hearts to what is said. It shows . . . what it is to hear God; . . . God is not heard, if we receive with levity his words, so that they soon vanish away; but we hear them when we lay them on the heart, . . . There is then required a serious attention, otherwise it will be the same as though the ears were closed against God. (Calvin) They had hard hearts. The Bible here is connecting our heart and our ears, that listening requires both, that the truth comes in, and it needs to sink in. And oftentimes, the resistance to the truth is not that we don’t understand it, but it’s that we don’t like it. We don’t want to hear it because we don’t want to change (Driscoll). When God’s word is not received his name will not be revered. When we disregard and despise God’s word we dishonor Him. A deep root has been planted for the ministry of the Word when a man trembles in the presence of God, stands in awe of his name, and has a heart for his glory. There is absolutely no spiritual success without this root. (Piper)
3) Live in God’s Way 8 But you have turned aside from the way. 6 He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. When the Bible uses the language of “walk,” this is a lifestyle, walking with God. Eugene Peterson calls this “long obedience in the same direction.”(Driscoll) God himself gives him this honorable testimony: He walked with me in peace and equity. He did not think it enough to talk of God, but he walked with him. The temper of his mind, and the tenor of his life, were of a piece with his doctrine and profession; he lived a life of communion with God, and made it his constant care and business to please him; he lived like a priest that was chosen to walk before God (Henry) Levi walked with God and his life was character by: His reverence of God and his sincerity in worship. His regard for knowing God’s word. His exemplary Life. His teaching others the word. The true minister of the Word walks with God. And as he walks, he pursues peace and stands upright in all his dealings. He is transparent and straightforward and faithful in all his dealings. His lips are pure and peaceable (Piper) A man’s character must match his communication. What he says with his lips must match how he lives his life.
4) Lead others to God’s Word and God’s Way 8 You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. 7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. A teacher of God’s word is to be imparting life and nourishment to people. There’s nothing worse than someone who opens the book and fog comes out. It’s like, “I don’t know where we’re going. I can’t see what we’re talking about. It’s fine to be a good communicator, but you need to have good content. The Bible teacher’s job is not always to be liked, but to always be clear. (Driscoll) 1.) What is the duty of ministers: The priests’ lips should keep knowledge, not keep it from the people, but keep it for them. Ministers must be men of knowledge; for how are those able to teach others the things of God who are themselves unacquainted with those things or unready in them? They must keep knowledge, must furnish themselves with it and retain what they have got, that they may be like the good householder, who brings out of his treasury things new and old. Not only their heads, but their lips, must keep knowledge; they must not only have it, but they must have it ready, must have it at hand, must have it (as we say) at their tongue’s end, to be communicated to others as there is occasion. Prov. 10:13, 21 (2.) What is the duty of the people: They should seek the law at his mouth; they should consult the priests as God’s messengers, and not only hear the message, but ask questions upon it, that they may the better understand it and that mistakes concerning it may be prevented and rectified. We are all concerned fully to know what the will of the Lord is, to know it distinctly and certainly; we should be desirous to know it and therefore inquisitive concerning it. Lord, what will you have me to do? We must not only consult the written word, but must have recourse to God’s messengers, and desire instruction and advice from them in the affairs of our souls as we do from physicians and lawyers concerning our bodies and estates (Henry) The word which we deliver is God’s, and not our own; and it must be received, not as ours, but God’s (1 The 2:13). And what we deliver with our lives, we are bound to exemplify with our lives, so as be living “epistles of Christ, known and read of all men (2 Cor 3:3) (Simeon) If God’s ministers are godly, the people of God will tend to be godly also and even the ungodly will have some cause for honoring the Lord’s name. If the ministers are unfaithful- if they suggest by their conduct that God is contemptible and his service a burden-then the people will not be edified, their lives will not be exhibit the excellencies of God’s character, and God will be despised among the heathen for their sake (Boice).
Admonition
If the Priest continue in their disobedience the Lord will bring judgement upon them. Piper suggests four ways:
1) God will curse them. v 2 I will send the curse upon you
2) God will turn their words which ought to be blessings into curses. In other words their ministry becomes a plague rather than a blessing to God's people. v. 2 I will curse your blessings I have already cursed them
3) God will rebuke their offspring, or the reference may be to their seed in the sense of their crops. v. 3 I will rebuke your offspring If the crops did not grow the people would not have as big of an offering and the priest would lose revenue from the percentage they get from the offerings.
4) God will smear the dung of their mangy sacrifices (intestines that were to be discarded) on their own sanctimonious faces. Which means he will make them as despised and contemptible as possible among the people. He will make them unclean and they will be forced to remove themselves from before the people. v. 3 spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it. v. 9 I make you despised and abased before all the people,