Malachi 2:5-9, How Priests (Pastors) Should Minister

Though there is not a one-to-one correspondence between priests and pastors, there is a similarity of responsibility. As one commentator says,

Whilst the prophets were extraordinary messengers of God, who proclaimed to the people the will and counsel of the Lord, the priests, by virtue of their office, were so to speak the standing or ordinary messengers of God. (Keil and Delitzsch)

And this is the responsibility of pastors, as well, to be the ordinary messengers of God. Malachi brings Yahweh’s evaluation of how the priest/pastor should minister to His people, His sheep.

⁵ My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant that required fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. ⁶ Truth was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. ⁷ For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of Yahweh of hosts. ⁸ But you have turned aside from the right path. You have caused many to stumble into sin by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says Yahweh of hosts, ⁹ and so I make you despised and humiliated before all the people, because you do not keep my ways but show favoritism in your instruction.

Malachi (his name means my messenger or my angel) continues to declare God’s covenant blessings and responsibilities He had with Levi, the priestly clan in Israel. It was an agreement that brought life and peace to the Levites, if they kept it, and it required that they fear and obey Yahweh’s strict commands about the offering of sacrifices, as well as their oracular, therapeutic, instructional, and administrative responsibilities. Levi did this and as a result turned many of Israel’s people from sin, turned them to life.

But now the priests were failing to keep covenant with Yahweh. Whereas a priest/pastor should guard knowledge so that people could have a reliable source of truth and instruction on how to walk with God, these priests had turned from this path and were causing people to stumble into sin. They were the messengers (malachi’s, angels) of Yahweh, but were no longer giving God’s messages. This is why, for example, they were receiving blemished animals as sacrifices, contrary to God’s law. They were showing favoritism by not requiring unblemished animals.

In consequence, God was no longer giving them life and peace, but rather making them despised and humiliated before the people. They weren’t, as we shall see, being provided for by the people through tithes as God required. They and the temple were suffering dereliction.

Pastors, do not fail in your responsibilities before God for His people.