“A son naturally honors his father and a slave respects his master. If I am your father, where is my honor If I am your master, where is my respect? The Lord who rules over all asks you this, you priests who make light of my name!” (Malachi 1:6)
“My, how good you have become at chasing after your lovers! Why, you could even teach prostitutes a thing or two!... But, watch out! I will bring down judgment on you because you say, “‘I have not committed any sin’” (Jeremiah 2:33-35).
“Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites! For the Lord has a covenant lawsuit against the people of Israel. For there is neither faithfulness nor loyalty in the land, nor do they acknowledge God” (Hos 4:1).
New Testament Passages
“Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom the master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves their food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom the master finds at work when he comes. I tell you the truth, the master will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if that evil slave should say to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ and he begins to beat his fellow slaves and to eat and drink with drunkards, then the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not foresee, and will cut him in two, and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 24:45-51).
“If you love me, you will obey my commandments” ( John 14:15).
“My commandment is this – to love one another just as I have loved you”( John 15:12)
"Then he said to them all,' If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me" (Luke 9:23)
Re-Contextualizing Scripture for Today
How
easy we find it to say that God is our Heavenly Father. When times get rough we
say, “Our Heavenly Father will provide”. When we have requests to bring we pray
“Our Heavenly Father”. How easy we find it to say on Sunday, “Jesus is Lord”.
To say, "We love you Jesus".
Now
in the passage in Malachi, God accuses His priests who found it easy to carry
out their position in society without showing Him respect or honor. He essentially
accused them of religious hypocrisy. He condemned them for treating His name
lightly, for saying YAHWEH is ADONAI (Lord/ Master) but then not living as if
He was truly the Master of their lives throughout the week, as God pointed out
how they have ignored His commandments (Mal 1:10-15). They obeyed God
half-heartedly and were devoted more to their own prosperity than their loyalty
to follow His standards.
To
the New Testament Jewish believers, calling Jesus Lord meant calling Him Adonai.
To them this meant He was the master of their existence and that they no
longer lived for themselves. Jesus, knowing this, accepted being called Master
and said, “If you love me[, which includes honor and respect, then] you will
obey my commandments”. If one loves Jesus than one recognizes who He is and
loves Him for who He is. Seeing as He is the Lord, to love Him means
to love Him as Lord and recognizing this position of lordship. In other words, we
must live as if He is the Lord over our relationships, choices, career, schooling,
etc.. It means to seek His will and not my will or your will over our lives.
How
can one say, “I love my wife”, if he does not recognize her as his wife and instead
sleeps around with other women? This would be flat out hypocrisy, especially if
the man continued to say that he loved her while living an adulterous
lifestyle. In a similar way, how can we say we love Jesus, but not obey His
commandments? In this way we show no respect for His position over our lives,
as those who identify Him as our Lord. Only by identifying Him as Lord are we
saved, but mere identification does not represent the actual fulfillment of
this claim. If I identify “Anne” as my wife, does not mean that I actually love
her like my wife. This claim necessarily entails responsibilities or else the
claim rings hollow.
Is
He my Lord? Is He your Lord? Only how we live will reveal the answer to such
questions?
