Malachi

🏛️ Historical context

The temple had been rebuilt, but priests offered blemished animals, marriages were breaking up and the people wondered whether serving God was worth it.

🔙 Background

Once the enthusiasm of the return had passed, faith had grown cold.

🧭 Structure of the book

⭐ Key events and teachings

1. 1"I have loved you, says the Lord" (1:2)
2. 2A pure offering in every place among the nations (1:11), read as a foretelling of the Eucharist
3. 3Critique of divorce: "I hate divorce, says the Lord" (2:16)
4. 4"I send my messenger to prepare the way" (3:1), fulfilled in John the Baptist
5. 5Elijah will come before the day of the Lord (4:5-6)

🏷️ Main themes

📖 Verses to memorize

• Malachi 1:11For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts.
• Malachi 2:10Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why then doth every one of us despise his brother, violating the covenant of our fathers?
• Malachi 3:1Behold I send my angel, and he shall prepare the way before my face. And presently the Lord, whom you seek, and the angel of the testament, whom you desire, shall come to his temple. Behold, he cometh, saith the Lord of hosts.
• Malachi 3:6For I am the Lord, and I change not: and you the sons of Jacob are not consumed.
• Malachi 4:2But unto you that fear my name, the Sun of justice shall arise, and health in his wings: and you shall go forth, and shall leap like calves of the herd.

💭 For reflection

• Do I offer God my best or my leftovers?
• Why does Jesus say John the Baptist is the Elijah who was to come?

The last of the Old Testament prophets. He rebukes careless worship and unfaithfulness in marriage, and announces the messenger who will prepare the way of the Lord, fulfilled in John the Baptist.