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This interview is part two of a three-part series. In part one, Dr. Block identified some important messages from the Old Testament concerning purity in the personal lives of preachers. His answer continues below.

Purity, the clean and the unclean, the idea of holiness—these are dominant Old Testament themes. As preachers pursue purity in their personal lives, what are some of the important messages from the Old Testament for them?

Malachi 2. The problem Malachi addresses throughout the book is that there is no fear of God in this place. And in the absence of fear, you have all kinds of anomalies and problems. Where there is no fear of God—we see it in chapter 1—there's boredom in worship. Where there is no fear of God, people don't fulfill their vows. Where there is no fear of God, people are greedy; they don't give to the Lord what the Lord calls for. Where there is no fear of God, people are heartless toward the poor. Where there is no fear of God, people don't keep their marriage covenants.

But stuck right in the middle of this, the prophet tells us that where there is no fear of God in the life of the priest—that is, the preacher—nothing is right. He talks about the covenant that God had made with Levi, a covenant whose objectives were life and peace and reverence. Surely, the preacher should be the embodiment of all of those. He lives life to the fullest. His life is one of shalom and peace, and he embodies reverence. In this instance, Malachi talks about the day that used to be, when the Levites revered God and stood in awe of his name.

Unfortunately, in our day, we have a lot of preachers who lack the gravitas that should come with the awesome privilege of standing before God's people week in and week out and being spokespersons for God. We've trivialized the role. We've trivialized our positions. We've become flippant about it. But the preacher needs to be aware that, like the Levites, his role is to embody awe and reverence.

How do we communicate this? Malachi goes on: "Truth"—that's the professional teaching and preaching work the Levites used to perform—"was in his mouth and unrighteousness was not found on his lips." Now that may have to do with the preaching and teaching they did, but I think it also has to do with their casual conversation. Everything about them was devoted to God, in honor of God, for the glory of God. So they spoke righteousness.

Then Malachi talks about the next quality of what a Levite used to be: "He walked with me in peace and uprightness." Some pride themselves in their walk with God. Isn't God lucky to have me? Where would God be without me? But of course that's the opposite of what Malachi is talking about.

Micah 6:6–8 says, "With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

A humble walk with God … what does that look like? Well, I suppose it's a walk that is the opposite of the non-verbal signals we send—those signals that say, "Look at me." We're so impressed with our importance. We feel like people should look at us and see who we are. But according to Scripture, the answer is no. It's not about us; it's about God. It's about God, and the call to walk with him is an undeserved privilege and an unspeakable honor.

And then Malachi says, "He turned back many from iniquity, for the lips of the priest should preserve knowledge and men should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts." This is a part of our task as preachers. We are to call people from sin. We are to teach them, to give them true instruction. We are to preserve knowledge. But the right to do that doesn't come from our training. The right to do that doesn't come from the degrees we have or the seminaries from which we graduated or the talents we have. The right to do that comes only from being designated as a messenger of God. It is God who calls us, and so we speak for him only by the authority of his calling—not our learning, not our giftedness.

Malachi then goes on to talk about how it is in his day: "But as for you, you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by the instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi." And I'm concerned about that in our day. How many preachers have corrupted the covenant of Levi? How many of us are turning people aside, away from truth, in our preaching? And how many of us are refusing to call people out of sin to the glorious grace of forgiveness and the transforming power of Christ through his Word and the Holy Spirit? We've lost that.

We don't embody the passion that is needed for that anymore, and we certainly don't communicate it with our preaching, because our concern these days is often to make people feel good about themselves rather than to speak the truth. After all, we do want them to come back next Sunday. And if you lay guilt on people, they might not come back. We've forgotten that for sinners to learn that they are sinners is the most glorious gospel we can preach, because that opens up the door for us to proclaim the wonderful message of forgiveness that God has made available through Christ.

Of course, in our personal lives, we need to embody the delight that is found in that forgiveness. All of life ought to be a celebration of God's grace and goodness, so that when we stand before the people and proclaim the oracles of God, we don't proclaim them as merely objective truth or a distant reality, but we give voice to that which we have experienced and which the people can see in our lives.

It's interesting that the prophet Malachi doesn't only talk about the problem. He also gives a solution. Right at the end of the book, he answers the question, If there is no fear of God in this place, how do we get it back? It's an interesting answer, and we find it in chapter 4 verse 4: "Remember the Torah of Moses, my servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel." And of course he's talking about more than just the laws. He's talking about the Book of Deuteronomy, which represents Moses' final pastoral farewell addresses.

In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses gives us the recipe for fear, because the fear of God is so crucial for the life of holiness and godliness on the part of preachers and others who would lead God's people. In Deuteronomy 31:9 we read:

Moses wrote this Torah. He gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying, "At the end of every seven years, at the time of the year of remission of debts, at the feast of booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place which he will choose, you shall read this Torah in front of all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people—the men, the women and children, and the alien in your town—in order that they may hear and learn and fear the Lord your God and be careful to observe all the words of this Torah."

Deuteronomy presents a very interesting recipe for life. That recipe starts with reading the Torah. Then it moves to hearing the Torah, learning the Torah, fearing God, walking in his ways, and living. Reading is the key to life, but right in the middle there is that word fear.

In chapter 10, the Lord says through Moses, "What does the Lord ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, to love him and serve him with all your hearts?" The way in which we learn to fear the Lord is through reading the Word.

This is the essence of Psalm 1: "Blessed is the one who does not stand in the counsel of the ungodly, nor walk in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the Torah of the Lord."

It's not just law; it is the living Word of God. The Book of Deuteronomy is about life. "His delight is in the Torah of the Lord, and in his Torah he meditates day and night." That kind of person will be like a tree planted by rivers of water. And of course the key here is, "that they may fear me and obey me and live." God has provided a means for life. It's in the Word. It is the Word that cleanses. The Holy Spirit takes that Word and, through it, does his transforming work in us.

Daniel Block is professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.