Marriage and Divorce: Part 2 (Malachi 2.10-16)

Litmus Test
One day a man came up to Jesus and asked Him what the greatest commandment was. "And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets," (Matthew 22.37-40, ESV). The two greatest commandments in the Bible are to love God and love your neighbor.
What we see here is a litmus test in our daily living. How is it that we can know whether or not we love God? We know by how we love each other and how we treat each other. John wrote, "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother," (1 John 4.20-21, ESV).
So how we love each other will show us how much we truly love God. This was Malachi's dilemma. "Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers" (Malachi 2.10, ESV)? God was the Father of the Jewish people. He called Abram out of Ur, from the land of the Chaldea. He created a new nation from His own desire to covenant with a people. So why then, if God was the Father of every Jew, were they being faithless to each other? If they were bound together through God's creative work, then why were they going against each other? Where is the love and respect for God within such treatment of each other?
It wasn't so much that they had their disagreements and they simply walked away angry with each other. The word faithless here has the idea of dealing treacherously or betraying their fellow brothers and sisters under God. Malachi is not dealing with petty arguments and disputes. He is dealing with the majority of the people actively seeking out the hurting of their fellow people. The people are plotting against their brothers and sisters, and it is evident in one real and major way.