Digging in Deeper: Malachi 1:2-3a

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“I have loved you,” says the Lord. Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?” “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the Lord’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

This morning we ran into this incredibly hard statement on God’s part that He hated someone. Namely, He hated Esau, Jacob’s brother. But, the observation wasn’t specific to just Esau. It included the entire nation of his descendants as well. Fortunately, the way God was using the words “love” and “hate” in Malachi, wasn’t the same as the way we often use them today. He simply meant that He chose one over the other. There were no emotions involved. The thing is, even understanding that, this passage is still really hard to accept. Let’s talk about why.

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Morning Musing: Malachi 1:2-3a

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“I have loved you,” says the Lord. Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?” “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the Lord’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When God asserted His love for the people of Israel at the beginning of Malachi’s little collection of prophecy, the people whose hearts were hard from years of doing religion without any kind of relationship meaningfully in place, immediately fired back a challenge: “How?” God’s response is, for modern ears, one of the hardest things we find Him saying in the Old Testament. What are we supposed to do with this?

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Digging in Deeper: Proverbs 22:6

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“Point your kids in the right direction— when they’re old they won’t be lost.”‬‬ (The Message – Read the chapter) 

Parenting is tough. I can say that with confidence and I’m only ten years into it. Every season has its challenges. And every season feels like its challenges are bigger and harder than the season before it. You can’t imagine it could get any harder—or better—and then it does. If you are a parent committed to seeing your children grow to love and follow the Lord, this just adds an extra burden to the pile. This particular burden is great enough, verses like this one are often claimed as a cover for mistakes we might have made along the way. Is that okay? 

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Morning Musing: Malachi 1:2a

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“I have loved you,” says the Lord. (CBS – Read the chapter)

The history of Israel is one of the all-time epic stories of human history. Starting through the families of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it wound its way through 400 hundred years of captivity in Egypt. Moses led the people to freedom and Joshua to inhabit the land God had sworn to Abraham to give his descendants. From there, things were generally rocky. They were on again, off again with God, but He never wavered in His faithfulness to them. Even when He finally had to call a national “time out” because they had drifted so far afield, He was still faithful to them there, and brought them home again to rebuild what had been lost. You perhaps already knew much of that. So why tell it again? Because of what Malachi says here.

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Digging in Deeper: Micah 6:8

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“Mankind, he has told each of you what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter) 

Have you ever tried to read one of those End User License Agreements you normally just click “accept” and ignore when downloading some program onto your computer? I have. Most are just line after line of legalese that eventually make your eyes go cross. It would be nice if some company would offer a kind of three-point summary of it along with the link to read the full text. EULA’s are bad enough. Have you ever felt that way about the Bible? It sure would be nice to have a summary of all of that, wouldn’t it? 

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