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Malachi 2:10-16

Theme: God’s people are being unfaithful to him, divorcing their wives and marrying pagan women.

Aim: Turn from your unfaithfulness, and obey God and his commands fully (i.e. don’t intermarry, don’t divorce your wives, except for reasonable cause, and obey God with your heart, not just actions).

Study Aim: Briefly cover the main points in the passage (intermarriage, divorce, religious facade), reviewing the OT laws particularly, whilst drawing out the underlying issue of unfaithfulness. Consider and discuss one or two scenarios about divorce, marriage, and dating for application, ending by discussing what faithfulness looks like.

Notes

Helpful References

Study

  1. What is going on in the passage?
    • 2 main things
    • Israelites are breaking God’s covenant with them by marrying to those who don’t worship God. (2:11)
    • They are divorcing their wives, which God hates. (2:14-16)
    • Come back to “cover[ing] the Lord’s altar with tears” (2:13) later.
    • [Quickly] What’s the underlying problem here?
      • Main point is that Israel is being unfaithful to God, these are just 2 symptoms of that.
  2. [Longer question] Why are these things bad?
    1. Intermarriage
      • Directly against God’s commands (Deut. 7:3-4 and Ex. 34:11-16)
      • Leads God’s people away from him (Neh. 13:23-29, Num. 25:1-3)
        • Another example is Solomon -> married many wives from other nations and was lead astray.
      • Children won’t be brought up in a godly way, will be acceptable to them to worship God along side other gods. (2:15)
      • Children can’t even speak Hebrew -> a loss of culture and identity as a nation. (Neh. 13:24)
      • Is God being racist?
        • No, this is about what spouses worship, not about where they are from (i.e. ethnicity or race)
    2. Divorce
      • Marriage is a covenant, a 3 party agreement: husband, wife and God. Breaking that means you are just as unfaithful to God as you are to your spouse.
      • God has joined husband and wife together (2:15), divorce separates that. (Matt. 19:6, Mark 10:9)
      • Jesus’ teaching tell us marriage is intended to be permanent, and the only acceptable reasons for divorce are things like sexual immorality (i.e. cheating, etc.), desertion, abuse etc. (Matt. 5:31-32)
      • Additionally, Jesus appeals to Gen. 1:27, 2:24 for the original intention of marriage, stating that divorce was only permitted because of their hard hearts, and was not meant to be so. You cannot divorce for “any cause”, and doing so without was committing adultery. (Matt. 19:3-9)
  3. What is the real problem that intermarriage and divorce are just symptoms of, and what does this tell us about their attitude?
    • The Israelites have broken and profaned their covenant.
    • Been unfaithful to God and deliberately broken his commands.
    • What do you think is happening in verse 13?[Moving towards the next question]
    • 2:13 tells us they “cover the Lord’s altar with tears” -> they are crying because God isn’t accepting their offerings, but are only doing a show of religion, their hearts are unchanged - seen in their unfaithfulness to their wives (2:14)
    • The Israelites respond to God’s rejection of them with hyper-emotionalism, trying to convince God to accept their offerings again (recall that their offerings were substandard anyway). It is too little, too late, like a student begging their marker to extend the deadline after they didn’t write their essay in time.
  4. Where do we see hypocrisy or “fake repentance” in our own lives?
    • Devotional and prayer lives. How do we pray as much as we like people to believe we do? Or read the Bible as regularly?
    • Repeated sins. If we keep committing the same sin over and over, are we truly repenting of it and seeking to live godly lives?
    • Attendance to church and church activities. Do we go to church twice a week, life groups, prayer meeting, bible studies because we truly want to grow in faith, or because we want to look “holy”?
  5. Scenarios
  6. What does it mean to be faithful to:
    1. God?
      • Obeying his commands
      • Serving him whole-heartedly
      • Building up his church, encouraging each other and in evangelism
    2. Spouse?
      • Keeping the vows of marriage
    3. Each other (specifically in the Church)?
      • Commitment, especially a whole hearted commitment.
      • Keeping your word and promises.
      • Being loyal.
      • Persistence and perseverance.

Extra question covered in the scenarios, but here if there is time to spare:

  1. How can we support those we know who are married?
    • Pray for them, and their commitment to each other and to God.
    • Don’t be a stumbling block to them; i.e. distract from their spouse, sow discontent, etc.

Other Points

Points which are not in the study, but here in case they come up.

An unbelieving spouse can be saved by they testimony of the other.

This can be true in some instances, and by God’s grace someone may come to faith through a marriage to a Christian. However this does not mean that it is OK to do so.