바울의 마지막 문안 인사 (30) 바울 은 마지막 문안 인사에서 이렇게 말씀했습니다 : “아킵보에게 이르기를 주 안에서 받은 직분을 삼가 이루라고 하라” ( 골 4:17). 아킵보는 자신의 직분을 충분히 입증하라는 말씀 입니다 . 신약성경에 나타난 주요 직분으로는 목사 , 장로 , 집사 등이 있습니다 . 직분자들은 자신의 직분을 충분히 입증하기 위해선 (1) 그리스도 예수님께 감사해야 합니다 . 디모데전서 1 장 12 절입니다 : “나에게 힘을 주신 우리 주 그리스도 예수님께 내가 감사하는 것은 나를 충성스러운 사람으로 여겨 나에게 직분을 맡겨 주셨기 때문입니다 . ” 바울은 자신이 예수 그리스도를 믿지 않았을 때에 모르고 하나님을 모독하고 성도들을 핍박하던 난폭한 사람이었는데 하나님께서 자신을 불쌍히 여겨 주시사 회심케하셨을 뿐만 아니라 사명을 주시사 이방인의 사도로 세우셨기에 예수님께 감사했습니다 . (2) 은혜의식 속에서 더 많이 수고해야 합니다 . 고린도전서 15 장 8-10 절입니다 : “맨 나중에는 부족하기 짝이 없는 내게도 나타나셨습니다 . 나는 사도들 중에 가장 보잘것없는 사람이며 하나님의 교회를 박해했기 때문에 사도라고 불릴 자격마저 없습니다 . 그러나 오늘날 내가 이렇게 된 것은 하나님의 은혜로 된 것이며 내게 주신 그분의 은혜가 헛되지 않아 내가 다른 모든 사도들보다 더 많이 일했습니다 . 그렇지만 그것은 내가 한 것이 아니라 나와 함께 하신 하나님의 은혜였습니다 . ” 그래서 그는 은혜 의식 속에서 다른 모든 사도들보다 더 많이 일을 했습니다 . 우리도 그 리 해야 합니다 .
3 Things to Know about Malachi
4 Min Read
The Lord says many challenging things to His post-exilic people through the prophet Malachi. The book of Malachi is arranged as a series of seven prophetic disputations that each begin with a bitter saying of the people to which the Lord responds. Most of these oracles are searching rebukes of the attitudes and actions of Malachi’s contemporaries. However, before the Lord rebukes the people, He begins by affirming His electing love for them, which is the reason they continue to exist after the judgment of the exile. Before He says, “This is what I have against you,” the Lord first declares, “I love you” (Mal. 1:2).
1. Malachi reveals that God’s electing love is always the starting point.
The people, meanwhile, respond with a rebuff, “How have you loved us?” (Mal. 1:2). This is a question to which the Lord gives a surprising answer. We might have expected the Lord to point to the exodus and conquest of the land of Canaan, where He performed mighty miracles to protect His people and grant them their inheritance. Instead, the Lord points Israel even further back, to the election of their forefather, Jacob, and the contrasting rejection of his brother, Esau (Mal. 1:3). This utterly undeserved love is the reason there is still an Israel after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the exile. Israel had suffered for her sins, to be sure, but she had nonetheless been restored because of the Lord’s great love. Edom, the descendants of Esau, survived the Babylonian period relatively unscathed by aiding the Babylonians (see Obad. 1:10–14). But Edom’s present comfort would soon be destroyed, and her fall would be full and final (Mal. 1:4–5). God’s chosen people might stumble through their sins, but they will not fully fall, for the Lord holds them up out of love (see Ps. 37:23–24).
2. Malachi demonstrates that people are tempted to cynicism when life is hard.
In the book of Malachi, the people’s response to the Lord is deeply cynical from beginning to end. At the beginning, they brush off the Lord’s declaration love for them (Mal. 1:2). At the end, they declare that obeying the Lord is worthless since evildoers prosper and the arrogant are blessed (Mal. 3:15). Where is the supposed justice of God (Mal. 2:17)? This cynical attitude toward the Lord shows up in the people’s half-hearted worship (Mal. 1:12–13), their unfaithfulness to the Israelite wives they had married (Mal. 2:14–16), and their stingy giving (Mal. 3:8–9). Even the priests have been infected with the same attitude (Mal. 2:1–9), allowing the people to offer defective sacrifices and giving biased legal rulings, in return for bribes (Mal. 2:9). Hard times often breed cold hearts toward God, both then and now.
3. Malachi shows that the Lord honors those who honor Him.
Not everyone in Malachi’s day shared this cynical attitude toward the Lord. Some still feared the Lord, and the Lord saw that attitude and kept them as His “treasured possession,” (segullah; Mal. 3:17), the same word used to describe Israel in Exodus 19:6. The Lord would soon appear in His temple to bring the justice for which people were supposedly longing (Mal. 3:1–2). He would separate the righteous from the wicked once for all, and those who feared the Lord would be vindicated as His true people, while the wicked would be judged and destroyed (Mal. 4:1–3). In the meantime, the faithful remnant should remember the law of Moses, God’s standard for holy living, and should look forward to the coming of a new Elijah, the archetypal prophet, to call God’s people to repentance (Mal. 4:4–6). Those who failed to respond to his message would face a judgment curse (herem; Mal. 4:6).
But if we are all sinners who fall far short of keeping the law of Moses, as Paul points out in Romans 3, how can God distinguish between righteous and unrighteous at the final judgment without condemning all of us? How can the Lord save unrighteous Jacob, whom He loves and has chosen? The answer to that question awaits the New Testament, for which Malachi’s prophecy prepares us perfectly.
In Luke 1:17, John the Baptist is identified before his birth as the Elijah who would precede Jesus Christ in His first coming. Significantly, the angel’s message focuses exclusively on the positive side of Malachi’s prophecy, declaring “He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” The possibility of the judgment curse is not mentioned because in His first coming, Jesus came to seek and to save those who are lost (Matt. 1:21).
On the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus met with both Moses and Elijah, and talked about His exodus (exodon) from Jerusalem, through which He would bring redemption to His people (Luke 9:31). For those who refuse to accept Christ now, there is another coming to await when Christ will return as the rider on the white horse to bring destruction on the unrepentant (Rev. 19:11–21). But for those whose fear of the Lord is exhibited in faith in Christ, that day will be like the first rays of the rising sun in the springtime, warming the skin pleasantly, not a fiery furnace that consumes everything it contacts (Mal. 4:1–2).
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