In the Old Testament, a priest had a range of responsibilities from sacrificing for the sins of the people to knowing and preaching the law. Today, all of us are priests (1 Peter 2:9). We, therefore, have a responsibility to keep knowledge (of the scriptures) for people to receive from us. But there’s more to Malachi’s second chapter. After describing the responsibilities of the priests, he also describes how the priests of his day failed: “But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of hosts." Malachi 2:8.
Many Christians today have a similarly weak attitude towards the scriptures. Rather than keeping God’s word pure in the face of a hostile culture, there is a worrying trend of interpreting God’s word to fit the culture. I’ve even seen one girl admit that “unfortunately”, her friend’s actions are described as sin in the Bible, but “so what”? Such a reckless attitude to the scripture is a failure of her duty as a priestess, and certainly a cause of her friend to stumble.
But doesn’t the Bible also say “judge not”? How, then, could we preach the law to those who break it? This is another example of where Christians fail to “keep knowledge”. The full context is Matthew 7:1-5, which doesn’t forbid all kinds of judgement, but rather it forbids hypocritical judgement. John 7:24, by contrast, tells us to judge righteous judgement. If you judge a man for a “small” sin, if it be right to use such a term, while you, yourself, commit a larger version of that sin, you condemn yourself. But telling someone what the word of God says can never be sin, even in the context of pointing out their error. Such is the very purpose of scripture! (2 Timothy 3:14-17).
As Christians, we all have a responsibility to learn, keep, and preach the word of God. As God opposed the weaker priests in Malachi’s days, so also will He judge us when we fail to keep His words. To cause another to stumble is, arguably, worse than sinning alone, for to sin on your own is to be held guilty alone, but in causing another to stumble, you doom two to destruction. Keep God’s word as a priest, and do not distort it as a devil.