Staying Together: Love & Friendship

Review Donnie

God’s Rules

Faithfulness

Unity

Permanence

Staying Together

Look to Christ

Remember the Covenant

Properly Communicate

Resolve Conflict

Pursue Intimate Closeness

Build Relational Confidence

Live in Godly Community

Read

Malachi 2:13–16 ESV

And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

Covenant Love & Faithfulness

Proverbs 3:3 ESV

Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart.

To fully grasp the meaning of Proverbs 3:3, we must understand the Hebrew concepts of “love” and “faithfulness.” In the Hebrew understanding, love includes kindness, compassion, and mercy, while faithfulness signifies reliability, truth, and stability. When these terms are found together, they form a foundation for godly living, reflecting the nature of God and His expectation for our lives. Let love and faithfulness never leave us, as they are essential to maintaining a godly life. For love and faithfulness to never leave us, we must make a commitment to love and faithfulness. This means that we should cultivate kindness and truth in our lives, ensuring that our actions align with the godly principles of love and faithfulness. Such a commitment requires us to go beyond superficial adherence to these principles; we can’t just pay lip service to love and faithfulness. Instead, we need a heartfelt dedication to embody love and faithfulness in every aspect of life. Let love and faithfulness never leave us, as they form the core of our daily lives.

Psalm 85:10 ESV

Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.

A kiss was a common form of greeting in ancient times, and still is in some cultures. The word picture painted in Psalm 85:10 is one of two friends greeting each other as if they had been separated a long time. Righteousness and peace have been estranged, but now they are friends again. The righteousness of God was opposed to peace on earth, as long as Israel remained in a sinful, unrepentant state. But now they are united, and the result is joy, a friendly embrace, and delightful harmony.

Israel’s Faithlessness to their Wives

Divorcing their Covenant Wives

Marrying Foreign Wives

Israel’s Faithlessness to God

Worldly Benefit

Finances

Societal

Pagan Intermarriage

Against God’s Purpose

Gospel Display in Marriage

Glory Displayed in Children

In other words, it is not enough to have a faith that exists on the periphery of life, even though we may still attend church on Sundays and do all the right religious things. A covenant relationship with God is much deeper and more demanding than that, touching every area of our experience. For a couple to thrive in marriage, God needs to be at the very center of their life, the primary focus of attention. If both spouses are daily seeking to move closer to God as their mutual center, they will be drawn closer to each other naturally as they do so. On the other hand, if the two spouses have different centers for their lives, then either they will draw closer to one another, pulling one of them away from his or her center, or, as they each draw closer to their own centers, they will inevitably be pulled apart as a couple.

United: Together with the Spirit

Two becoming one in the sexual aspect of marriage means caring for and fulfilling one another’s physical needs with respect and mutual consent (1 Corinthians 7:1–5), not exploiting one another (1 Thessalonians 4:3–7), and delighting in one another (Proverbs 5:15–19; Ecclesiastes 9:9). God’s design for physical intimacy in marriage is portrayed with beauty and dignity in the Song of Solomon. Of course, oneness in marriage reaches far beyond the physical level. The original Hebrew word translated as “flesh” refers to much more than a person’s physical or sexual composition. It relates to the whole human existence. The biblical view of “one flesh” communicates a unity that covers every facet of a couple’s joint lives as husband and wife. In marriage, two whole lives unite together as one emotionally, intellectually, financially, spiritually, and in every other way. The “two shall become one” in purpose. They are so close that they function like one person, balancing each other’s strengths and weaknesses so that together they can fulfill their God-given calling.

Zephaniah, Haggai, Malachi The Father of the Bride

In the beginning, marriage was intended to be a deep-seated, enduring union of a man and a woman—body and spirit—that would provide the context in which Adam and Eve could obey God’s command to fill the earth and subdue it (

Companion

Zephaniah, Haggai, Malachi The Father of the Bride

Marriage was not just about producing the next generation, however: a person’s spouse was also intended to be one’s “companion,” as Malachi points out in verse 14. Here he uses an unusual Hebrew word that describes an architectural seam or a joint in a building, or the process of bonding or cementing something together, what

Malachi Then and Now: An Expository Commentary Based on Detailed Exegetical Analysis B. Self-Righteous Protesting of God’s Word Will Not Work for God Witnessed the Marriage and the Treachery (14)

Malachi also says that she was his “companion” (חֲבֶרֶת). The word comes from a verb “to unite”; the verb and its nouns are used for close associates, partners, worshipers, armies, all of which are bound as a unit and share the same characteristics and goals. She was not just the wife of his early years, and not a servant—she was a partner, a companion. The marriage meant that they were bound together as one in the eyes of God. They shared everything together, griefs and joys, successes and failures, hard times and good times. But now, these women were being cast aside like an old garment for something new and fresh and exciting, but thoroughly worldly. Whatever had been there as holy matrimony was now being replaced by profane fornication.

Wife OF Your Youth

Malachi Then and Now: An Expository Commentary Based on Detailed Exegetical Analysis B. Self-Righteous Protesting of God’s Word Will Not Work for God Witnessed the Marriage and the Treachery (14)

Malachi intensifies the description of the treachery by the way he describes the marriage relationship (this is also good counseling method to remind the individual what he had in his marriage). First, he calls the wife the “wife of your youth (time).” The word “youth” can refer to ages up to the age of thirty or forty even, but usually a woman would have been younger when married. The use of the plural, “youths” (נְעוּרֶיךָ), is intended to recall all the times and events of the early years of their marriage when they were full of love and devotion and ambition and plans, beginning their family and their life together. She was the wife of his youth—the time of his vigor and industry. She was the one who had his first affections when they were the strongest, the one who gave him children, the one who brought up the children, and the one who had lived through it all with him. Now in a treacherous change he broke faith with her and their vows; she had become the scorn and loathing of his later years. So the prophet inserts the relative clause to heighten this betrayal: “against whom you have dealt treacherously.” The word “treachery” now appears for the third time in the oracle—it was against women like this that the treachery was committed.

Wife BY Covenant

Finally, he returns to the theme of covenant: “and the wife of your covenant.” He essentially says, “You made a covenant with your wife.” This was the binding oath that was witnessed by the LORD. But that covenant is now being abandoned in violation of the Law. Here is the warning for all who dissolve a marriage, even if they think they have reason to do so: it is covenant breaking. All of these qualifications of marriage are piled up by the prophet to convey how treacherous this all was. God planned that a man and a woman would become one flesh, be partners, share everything, build a life together, and together seek to please God. Their personal blessing depended on preserving this covenant; and the well-being of the nation depended on the marriages doing what they were supposed to do. When one of the partners broke the marriage vow, not simply in a sin that should not have happened, but a deliberate nullification of the marriage and a pursuit of an illegal marriage to another, that person was seen as a traitor because his or her words could never again be believed, even if made with an oath.

Malachi Then and Now: An Expository Commentary Based on Detailed Exegetical Analysis Application

No marriage is perfect. In marriages there will be many failures to measure up to the ideal; the marriage may be strained and thinned by friction, or marred and sullied by violations against its moral meaning. But the failures and abuses do not destroy the ideal. And we are always called back to the ideal, to the standard of God. For marriage to be holy matrimony, it must be pleasing to God. And to develop this there must be a real commitment to the will of God, so that the husband and wife truly see their marriage as service to God. Malachi says, “Take heed not to deal treacherously.” That is, do everything in your power to remain faithful to the covenant of marriage. And it will take such diligence because the way of the world is so different.

Application

The Message of Malachi: ‘I Have Loved You,’ Says the Lord 6. Pastoral Postscript

There are many painful issues raised by this section of Malachi, because marriage and the raising of children are tender issues for many in our churches.

Some want to get married, and cannot find someone to marry.

Some want to have children, and are not able to do so.

Some feel trapped in difficult marriages.

Some are married to unbelievers, or to a husband or wife who was formerly a believer, but is no longer a practising Christian.

Some have raised their children in the faith of Christ, and now find that their children have turned away from Christ.

Some have ended their marriages, and now realize that this was a mistake.

Some have had children who have died.

Some have had children who have serious health problems.

Some have experienced painful divorce, especially if they have been discarded by their husband or wife.

Some have come from very dysfunctional families or marriages, and feel that biblical standards are impossible to achieve.

Many feel that their marriages are in a mess.

Many parents feel that they are not doing a good job of raising their children.