A Deep Dive into Malachi: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Hey there, friends! Welcome back to Turning Heads Blog, an online community for Bible-lovers to share delight in God's word and discuss his goodness. To start off this brand new 2023 season, we will be diving into the book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament. I was inspired to create this *upcoming* four-part series when I was doing my quiet time with the Lord, and found myself in Malachi for the first time. Personally, it made me so excited, because it feels like a moment. Can we celebrate? The end of the Old Testament! Into the new!

Of course, I've read different parts of the Bible before. I do my nightly devotionals with chapters from different parts of the Bible. I've tried reading the entire Bible straight through, cover to cover, but I always seem to fall off somewhere around the book of 2 Samuel. Come on now, y'all. Bear with me. I've come to the conclusion that it works better for me to pick a book of the Bible that I feel called to, and start there. I do my research on the context, I pull out all my markers and highlighters, and I start annotating. I get deep into it, deeper than I would if I were reading just to get to the next page. I can really start to immerse myself, you know? Because I'm actually interested in the book I CHOSE to read.

This strategy was seeming to work really well. Then it got to a point, after Jonah, that I just wanted to keep reading straight through. The minor prophets were interesting me! (For context, the major prophets are Isaiah through Daniel, and the minor prophets are Hosea through Malachi).

Anyways, I was reading through the book of Malachi, and I truly felt like I was getting so many different messages. Somehow, God managed to make me feel extremely called out, blessed, guilty, and grateful all in the span of four chapters. Somewhere along there I wanted to cry to worship music. A few verses later I was laughing. Literally. More on that later.

All of this being said, I figured I owe it to the blog to send this out into the world. For anyone who read through all of this backstory, love ya. Let's get started:

For context, the book of Malachi (literally meaning "messenger"), received its name from the author, a messenger to God's people who had turned away from the Lord. They were in need of both judgement and salvation - and let's just say, God delivered. Historians guess that Malachi was written around 538-333 BC, at a time when the people of Judah were beginning to be exiled from the Promise Land. They were so focused on their unfortunate circumstances that they were struggling to see how much God endlessly loved them. Even in the first chapter of Malachi, God starts with his goodness, leading the author to title it, "The Lord's Love for Israel". However, God is not afraid to remind the people of Judah how they got to this low place - because of their own sinful deeds and shortfalls. This is a continual theme throughout chapters 1-4.

Chapter 1 begins as God explains to the Judeans that bad things happen to people protected by the Lord. He won't shield you from every bad thing ever to happen. He reminds them of Jacob and Esau. We might take a look at that situation, remembering God's love for Jacob, and wonder: Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does our God, who claims to love us and defeat our enemies, instead let them rise up against us in success?

God explains that even though "they may build", he will "tear down" (Malachi 1:4). Then we will see this and proclaim, "Great is the Lord!" (Malachi 1:5). We have to have faith that if we live according to God's word, He will deal with us accordingly. There will be great reward and blessing at the end of the road, and although it may be delayed, we must keep our heads down in diligence even as our enemies rise up above us.

The first chapter of Malachi then goes on to discuss the priests' polluted offerings, where they would offer blind animals, or animals that were lame or sick. For this we must acknowledge the context in which God is sharing this. There is nothing wrong with being lame, blind, or sick. In fact, God's life plan relates to animals too. Each creature was made to live life exactly in the way that God intended. What the Lord is angry about is, the way that the priests' are using these animals to their advantage. They give God these animals in offering because they have nothing to benefit from losing them. In this day and age, *focusing on the context here*, the priests could not use these animals for anything else because of their blemishes. The quality of their offerings was so poor that not even the government would accept them. And yet they give this to the God of the nations? The priests figured, by giving God these lame, blind, and sick animals as offering, that they could cheat the system and still be blessed by the Lord, because technically, they gave offering.

This angers God. He doesn't want the system to be cheated. He wants to be honored, by genuine hearts. He rejects their worship, and calls for more than the bare minimum. In fact, He even says He would rather the priests offer no sacrifices at all, than improper ones. The sin of bringing God selfish or half-hearted worship is worse than offering no worship at all.

Malachi 1:11 then goes on to say:

Amen! You tell 'em, God. For He is a great King, and His name will be feared among the nations (Malachi 1:14).

From this first chapter of the book, we can see God's reminder of His love for us, and how although we may fail, and watch our enemies rise up in success, God will fill our cups in the end. He also reminds us to be true in our worship, because we know the right things to do. Don't be lazy. Praise His name.

Until next time <3.