Malachi 4:6
He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction. (NIV)
Today’s Reading: Malachi 4:5-6
We conclude our year with the last verse of the Old Testament. It delivers both a wish and a warning. The wish is not that parents will reconcile with their children. That seems to be what this verse is saying but the true meaning is a bit lost in translation. For we know that Jesus specifically said that he didn’t come to reconcile parents to their children:
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (Matt 10:34-39).
The most important thing in this life is not that we get along with our family. The most important thing is that we completely surrender our life to Jesus. So the wish in Malachi 4:6 is actually that when God sends John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus’s message, that message will turn the hearts of both parents and children back to God. The NET version translates this verse more correctly:
“He will encourage fathers and their children to return to me, so that I will not come and strike the earth with judgment” (Mal 4:6, NET).
As parents, our calling is to bring our children to faith in Jesus. But when they become adults, it’s the responsibility of our children to embrace Jesus as their own Lord and Savior. We can only rely on the faith of our parents for so long. It must become our own faith as we mature into adulthood. That is God’s wish. That both parents and their children will follow Jesus. That was the mission of John the Baptist. Even the angel Gabriel quoted this Scripture to John’s father Zechariah:
“And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:17).
This is also our mission. We are to let Jesus shine through us so that the world around us will turn their hearts to him. The warning of the verse is that those who reject Jesus will face God’s judgment. God has an obligation to judge those who are still guilty of their sins. God is a just God. He has no choice. So He longs for us to turn to Him. So much so that he sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for His Son who would die for us.
This prophecy and the other 364 prophecies that we covered are all related in this way as well. They are messages from God that ultimately prove His word to be true. Everything God says is truth. He has proved it 365 times. We can fully trust Him because He is truth. Peter explains it this way:
“We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:19-21).
God’s word is completely reliable and we will do well to pay attention to it. It’s a light shining in a dark place. So when you find yourself in a dark place, go to the word of God. It’s a light that leads you back to Him where you find grace, truth and love.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:1-5).
Christ in the Old Testament 
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