12/15/24 Malachi 3:7b-12 Faithfulness to God with Money

The walk through Malachi is a series of heart checks for us in our relationship with God. When it comes to how we handle money, Jesus said this is a direct window into our heart to show what we love most. This passage in Malachi is challenging and has been misused and abused by pastors to throughout church history, including our day. For the Israelites in Malachi's day, they were being unfaithful by not paying what they owed Yahweh God set forth in the Mosaic Covenant: the tithe. We are no longer under the Mosaic Covenant and do not owe God payment in the same way. Rather, under the New Covenant, we are to respond to God's generosity to us in the Gospel by giving cheerfully from grateful hearts. And under both Covenants, the primary place to which offerings were used was to support pastors and the poor.