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I have been thinking about the verses in Malachi off and on.. and I wonder if this is a viable alternative interpretation? The concept of turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers has been taken to mean temple work and uniting families through family history.
But could it also be a literal foreshadowing/prophesy of today’s day?
The amount of work and effort and information we have about children and the focus on raising children has changed dramatically from just physical survival to surviving in a society with higher minimum standards (i.e. not only being able to read, but now having at least 1 college degree in the U.S.), a variety of parenting methods, and a TON more information on both practicalities and principles to be championed for raising children…. There is also the increased communication between the generations as children deal with situations their parents and grandparents never even dreamed about.
In addition, as people are living longer, the hearts of the children are being turned towards taking care of their parents in a variety of circumstances. As people are living up to 20-25 years longer then past generations, we are seeing a need to take care of those generations.
I am not trying to say that there is a specific way to do anything (raise children, support parents), but I have seen that when either side of the generation gap is not supported, there are issues that are worthy of being called a “curse”. Could the prophesy of Malachi be included to mean “As people live longer, the elderly (hearts of the fathers) will need to turn to their children and grandchildren in helping to raise the next generation with increased expectations, and the children and grandchildren (hearts of the children) will need to turn to the previous generations and tend to them. If this does not happen, then the “curse” of weakening families is seen throughout the world.
I find the bible to be an interesting puzzle. With most puzzles there is 1 right way to solve the puzzle. This puzzle is squishier. I have seen multiple religious narratives/interpretations overlaid on top of the words of the bible that seem to make sense. I suppose that part of it is that nobody uses all the words of the bible. We all get to pick and choose which verses to elevate into our core theology and which to devalue as irrelevant or only applying to antiquity.
I had a seminary teacher that told me that many scriptures have multiple meanings. I think yours is a legitimate interpretation. I like it – and, as gospeltangents said, I have the right (and, I think, the responsibility) to find personally appealing interpretations of lots of things that have orthodox interpretations with which I don’t agree – or accept multiple interpretations as plausible. This passage fits the latter model for me: There are multiple interpretations I think have positive meaning, so I am open to all of them.
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