Malachi 2 contains a serious warning to the priests, and I would apply the warning to preachers today.

The priests refused to honor God’s name, and so God will rebuke their descendants. They should have followed Levi’s example, who revered God and “stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips” (vv 5-6).

I came across a great “divine passive” that has some interesting implications for how we study the Bible and train our seminarians and preach to our people.

“Divine passive” is more of a theological category than grammatical. In form and basic meaning, it is simply a passive, but when God is the author of the verb, we call it a “divine passive.”

Paul prays for the Ephesians that God “may grant (δῷ, active) you to be strengthened (κραταιωθῆναι, divine passive) with power through his Spirit in your inner being” (3:16). God does the granting and the empowering.

The desired result is that “Christ may dwell (κατοικῆσαι) in your hearts through faith, rooted and grounded in love” (v 17).

I received two questions a while back and I thought I would answer them.

The first was that the comment that there is no imperative in the Greatest Commandment, just a future. “You shall love (ἀγαπήσεις) the Lord  your God with all  your heart, with all your soul, and with all  your mind.” (Matt 22:37). So how could this be a command, other than the previous question uses the word “commandment.” “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment (ἐντολὴ) in the law?”