An Examination of the Book of Malachi

AN EXAMINATION OF THE BOOK OF

MALACHI

The most fashionable and most widespread teachings on tithes are supposedly based on the book of Malachi chapter three …………….

Let us now go back to Malachi 3 and track its teachings. We will start by looking at seven words I consider to be of key importance. The key words are: -

1. RETURN          Verse 7
2. ROB      Verse 8
3. TITHES Verse 8
4. OFFERINGS    Verse 8
5. BRING  Verse 10
6. STOREHOUSE Verse 10 and
7. MEAT   Verse 10

Now for a closer look of the words one after the other starting with the word return.

(1) RETURN: In verse 7 God says, ‘Return unto me, and I will return unto you.’ This expression speaks of turning back to an original position or going back to a starting point. You can only return where you once were. If you never were in Harare, you cannot return to Harare but you simply go there. So to return is to go back to a starting point or original position. It can be physical or moral. Returning physically concerns geographical locations such as Bulawayo, Mutare, New York etc. Returning morally speaks of habits, practices and ways of living. If you behave against society’s norms and then repent and start living according to those standards we say you have returned to society’s way of life.

In verse 7 God is calling his people to return to him thereby giving us an insight into the kind of relationship prevailing then between God and his people. Man had departed from God and that is why God was calling man to repentance. If it was God who had departed from man, he would have said, ‘I am returning to you so please return to me also.’ Instead God is demanding man to return to him because it was man who had strayed. Man had left God; he had departed from his original position. God was telling men to turn away from his new and adopted position and back to where God had originally put him. I call that repentance; God was demanding that man should repent.

God does not leave man in suspense guessing and speculating where he had gone wrong or where he had to return. In no uncertain terms and quite frankly, God says to his people, ‘from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them.’ Aha! So man had departed from the ways and commands of God! That was the reason for the call of repentance. God therefore wants his people to return to his ordinances. God is saying set again the standard of my law. ‘Return to me and I will return to you’ says the Lord and indeed we must return to him in keeping his ordinances again. When we return to him, he will return to us with blessings as before. When we obey him again he will bless us again. Even in our day, we must return to God, we must turn away from our greedy ways and keep again the statutes of the Lord.

Now let us look to the next word- Rob.

ROB: This is the only word I will trace down to its

original Hebrew form. It is translated from the Hebrew word, קָבַע ‘QUABA’ which means to cover (up) i.e. defraud, to rob or spoil. …….

The word refers to taking what belongs to someone by chicanery without the owner’s consent. ………. Since it is feeble man who takes away what belongs to Almighty God, I strongly feel that the word plunder, which has violent connotations, cannot be the most suitable translation of the word in these circumstances. Instead the word defraud is a more suitable paraphrase because it denotes deception rather than violence. It also denotes deprivation. Here man takes by ruse and dishonesty rather than violence. What he merely does is convert what belongs to God to his own or some other use never intended by God. For instance, instead of providing food, the tithes will be used as a bait of gaining more wealth. The children of Israel never tithed in order to obtain more fields yet we do it for the sake of prosperity. We do not tithe to provide food but to entice God for some filthy riches. In short we have converted tithes to some other uses that God never intended. If we have sowed to the flesh must we reap of the spirit?

Will a man rob God? I used to say God is too strong to be robbed by mere man but one day I discovered that man has the capacity to rob God. From the above translation of the word rob; I deduced that in Malachi 3 God was charging his people with the crime of fraud. It cannot be a crime of plunder or violent looting because then man would be too weak to pillage Almighty God. He charges the entire nation of the same crime thereby suggesting that even the priestly tribe of Levi was also part of the crime. The fact that the priestly tribe was also a partner of the crime means that something very severe had gone wrong with tithing. May be nobody was still bringing tithes at all or the Levites were taking hundred percent of the tithes converting it to their own use or something more serious that we do not know was taking place. Whatever was happening it is very evident that the people of God were depriving God His tithes.

There is another book that was written at almost the same time as the book of Malachi which may give us an insight in to what could have been happening during that time thereby explaining how the fraud was perpetrated. The Book of Malachi was written between 440 and 400 B.C whilst the Book of Nehemiah was likely written between 445 and 420 B.C. This piece of information implies that the conditions prevailing during the days of Nehemiah and Malachi were similar or both authors could have lived during the same period of time.

In chapter 4 of his book, Nehemiah describes how the elite were abusing and oppressing the needy and the vulnerable of society whilst Malachi in verse 5 of his 3^rd chapter says that God will be a swift witness against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and those who turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not the LORD of hosts. Nehemiah in his 13^th chapter from verse 5 to 10 further gives yet another description of a disturbing incident that occurred during the same period. He says that when he had been briefly away from Jerusalem, the priest took the Levites’ share from the store house and gave it to Tobiah, God’s enemy. The resultant starvation of the Levites led to their abandoning their duties. These two events suggest that it was the priests and the elite who were therefore defrauding or robing God.

Whist the priest was converting the Levite’s share of the tithe to Tobiah’s use; the elite were busy oppressing the hireling, the widow, and the fatherless, in their wages and turning aside the stranger from his right. That is how they systematically robbed God hence the message of Malachi chapter three.

The crime the nation was committing could have been a non-violent one but was a highly sophisticated cunning and possibly well-orchestrated transgression of an accounting and financial nature which demonstrated bad stewardship which resulted in the neglect of the poor in direct violation of the laws and commandments of the Lord. Are we also not guilty of the same offence? Is our tithing not fraudulent in nature? I leave you to give the answers. This is food for thought.

God actually entrusted men with His tithes so that men would distribute the tithes in accordance with the Lord’s directions. Man was only made a steward over God’s possession but because of human deceptive tendencies we often convert tithes to some other uses. The result is always a lack of food in the Lord’s house. When Israel committed this crime, God gave only one remedy in Malachi 3:7 in the words ‘return to me.’ The same applies to us today, we must return to the Lord and to the basics or face the wrath and displeasure of the Almighty.

Fraud is dirty, filthy and undesirable since it hinges on the betrayal of our own honesty and integrity. Somewhere it is written that we are God’s stewards. God does not delight in a dishonest and fraudulent custodian. Stewardship demands honesty, integrity and faithfulness and to achieve this we must remain in Christ and hold on to the statutes of the everlasting God. Since God has appointed us stewards of his tithes we must learn to distribute the same according to the Master’s plan, purpose and will.

(3) TITHES: This means one tenth. It refers to ten percent of what God has blessed us with or given us. It is this tenth of our earnings that God says belongs to Him. Tithes are God’s property over which we have been made custodians. They cannot be less or more than the ten percent. If we give less than the tenth, we will have robbed God and if we give greater than ten percent the excess won’t form part of the tithe. The tithe of the tithe referred to in the book of Numbers is ten percent of the Levite’s tithes we bring to the house of God or put in other words, a fraction of our profit after contribution of the Levite’s wage. It was this tithe of the tithes for which storehouses were built ………………………….

The above is an extract from the book Saints Made Merchandise

My friend in the Lord, now buy you own copy of the book Saints Made Merchandise and read for yourself the rest. The book is divided in to 2 sections. Section One which has 5 chapters deals with the doctrine of tithes. Section Two which has 8 chapters deals with alms giving (or charity work) and offerings. It closes with a short chapter on the purpose of prosperity. The title of the book is derived from 2 Peter 2:1-3.