by Paul Mann
18 October 2015 at Bedfordview PM
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by Mike Graves
18 October 2015 at Bedfordview AM
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Malachi is the last book in the Hebrew Canon and in our Bibles. It can be placed after the rebuilding of the Temple by Zerubbabel (516 B.C) and before the arrival of Ezra in 458 B.C. It can also be dated some time after Nehemiah had left (445 B.C). Whenever it is dated, what is certain is that the people had become religiously cold and morally lax. They had heard the promises of restoration but now time had passed and disillusionment was the feeling of the time. God appeared to have abandoned his promise and Judah remained a small insignificant province in the Persian Empire.
The problems amongst the people that Malachi addresses are: mixed marriages (2:11-15); failure to tithe (3:8-10); no concern for the Sabbath (2:8-9); corrupt priests (1:6-2:9); and social problems (3:5). In a unique structure Malachi records the Lord’s words to the people. Malachi lists the problems as disputes that the people have with the Lord. He takes each one in turn describing God’s character, the people’s failure, and God’s solution.
Take for example (1:6-2:9). Introduction: God is father and master and you have defiled that. Question: How have we defiled you? Answer: you have placed lame animals on the altar.
The work pictures God as showing his great love for his people but questioning their love for him. He loves his people (2:1); He is their Father and master (1:6); their Father and creator (2:10); a just God (2:17); He does not change (3:6); and is totally honest (3:13), but they have failed to love him with the same enthusiasm. The book lists their behaviour that proves what God ‘suspects’.
Malachi ends, promising the Sun of righteousness will come with healing in his wings – a fitting end.
By Tyrone Daniel
4 October 2015
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By Matt Doty
4 October 2015 at Bedfordview AM
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By Darian Venerable
11 October 2015 at Bedfordview AM
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Only because of the messages and help of Zechariah and Haggai do the discouraged in Jerusalem rebuild the Temple which was finished in 516 B.C. Zechariah and Haggai have very similar themes to their prophecies, understandably. Zechariah’s work can be divided into two parts: Chapters 1-8 deal with more immediate concerns that the community would have been facing, while Chapters 9-14 deal with future events.
Zechariah might be the hardest of the minor prophetic books to understand. Chapters 1-8 consist of visions and reports of historical events. There are eight visions and their probable meanings are below:
Vision 1 – Israel had experienced the Day of Lord but the other nations were at ease – how come? The answer comes that God has not forgotten his people and the nations will have their day, too.
Vision 2 – opposition against God’s people will not last nor succeed.
Vision 3 – the glory of God will no longer be confined to the Temple but the city will be the dwelling place of God.
Vision 4 – the people would be able to build an acceptable Temple for God.
Vision 5 – the temple they were building was God’s work and although they didn’t find it acceptable, God did.
Vision 6 & 7 – God had initiated the exile for purification but sin had returned in the hearts of the returned exiles. This would be dealt with too.
Vision 8 – God would have the final say and clear his name amongst the nations.
The chapter closes out with the scene of a coronation (6:9-11) in which most Christian interpreters have seen the blending of Priest and King in Christ. The last thoughts in chapters 7-8 are around fasts that the Jews had observed and set up. Zechariah warns that cold formalism is a possibility that they should fear and shun.
Chapters 9-14 are Zechariah encouraging the people with future events. The return of the exiles was a great victory and restoration but complete restoration still waits. This is the theme of the chapters. The restoration from captivity was only a token compared to the great redemption to come.
Ezra tells us that 50,000 Jews returned from Babylon to Jerusalem. Their arrival was not welcomed with palm branches and cheers. Opposition to their return caused them to stammer and fall in discouragement. Ezra reports their rebuilding of the temple but there is a little space that he leaves out. It is the space of the words of Haggai.
Haggai and Zechariah arrive to a discouraged people. They are busy restoring their homes and restoring agricultural productivity (Haggai 1). It was in 520 B.C that the two prophets begin telling the people their priorities are upside down. The Temple is to be built first. By 516 B.C the Temple is built.
The book consists of four oracles that Haggai recorded. The first oracle (1:1-11) covers Haggai telling the leaders and people that the trouble they were facing was because they hadn’t tended to the most important thing – the Temple first.
His second oracle came less than a month after the rebuilding had started (2:1-9). It was clear to all that the second Temple was nowhere close to the glory of Solomon’s Temple. The people who saw Solomon’s would have been in their seventies. Haggai assures them that the second Temple will none the less far exceed Solomon’s in glory.
The third oracle (2:10-19) is in two parts. The message is that holiness is not contagious. Having a temple would not make the people holy. The only hope the people had was not the ‘magic’ of the Temple but the grace and mercy of God.
His fourth oracle (2:20-23) is for Zerubbabel the governor of Judah. The message is that Zerubbabel would not be the one to see a return of David’s rule to Judah, this would come in the future.
Second to Revelation, Daniel stands out as the most difficult book in the Bible to understand. Well, only the second half of it. The first half is some of the easiest and most loved narrative for children’s stories and Bible studies.
Daniel is a standout statesman in Babylon. He lives to over ninety years of age maintaining a high rank under Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius and Cyrus. He was taken to Babylon in the first invasion by Nebuchadnezzar and was joined by Ezekiel who arrived in the second invasion eight years later. Ezekiel refers to Daniel as a model of righteousness, no small feat while spending sixty-nine years in the most vile of courts. Daniel always remained faithful to God.
The overarching theme of the book is God’s kingship and royal power. Depending on your viewpoint each chapter tells us about God and Daniel’s experiences living in pagan ruled kingdoms.
Chapter 1 – God is shown as the keeper as Daniel tells us his story of what it’s like to live under Babylonian (pagan) authority.
Chapter 2 – God is shown as the God of history as Daniel speaks about Babylon being the first of three empires to rule Jerusalem and in the time of the fourth, God would usher in a kingdom that would rule over all.
Chapter 3 – God the deliverer is seen as Daniel and his friends survive under Babylonian rule.
Chapter 4 – God is shown as all powerful as Nebuchadnezzar suddenly dies.
Chapter 5 – God is also the judge when in the space of a chapter the Babylonian kingdom falls and the Persians rule.
Chapter 6 – the God who can do anything when under Persian rule saves Daniel from the infamous den of lions.
Chapters 7-12 take up the theme of how God’s kingdom relates to the kingdoms of the world. God’s kingdom moves forward no matter what goes on around it.
Daniel tells us two certain things: (1) it is more than possible for a follower of God to stand in the midst of pagan rule and pressure, and (2) God’s kingdom reigns over all the kingdoms of the world, no matter how it looks at the time.
Pic: Daniel in the Lion’s Den by Briton Riviere (1872).
It may come as a surprise that Joel features at this point in the chronological reading plan. Truth be told, academics only agree with the fact that they are not sure when Joel was written and therefore into what date and context he was writing. By now you would have seen how important context is to understanding Scripture, so Joel presents us with a bit of a puzzle. Date arguments focus on style and content and conclusions tilt towards a date in the post-exile period, hence we are reading it now.
Whilst we don’t know much about the actual date of the writing we do know a lot about the situation he was writing into. God’s people were in a terrible situation and Joel sees the hand of God in this and calls the nation to turn back to God wholeheartedly. A plague of locusts has come upon them and Joel sees this plague as a foretaste of the end of the world. He tells them it’s God’s intervention and warning for them. Joel’s ‘day of the Lord’ could well be any time where God intervenes in a major way to get people’s attention again.
Joel doesn’t denounce any particular sin (although he does mention drunkenness once) but the problem is general negligence and coolness on behalf of the people of God. Joel calls the people to awareness and repentance because of the time coming when the time will be finished to make things right. He views Israel being restored and the Spirit and salvation coming. He widens his message applying it to the whole world. There is a day coming for the whole world where they will account to God. But salvation will be there for them too.
Pic: Joel, by Michelangelo (Sistine Chapel)