The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change." - Edwin Friedman. That that people really can change is an essential Christian belief. However, change rarely happens in response to information or argument. People are motivated to change by relationship. In the calculus of the Kingdom of God, acts of compassion & brotherly love hold more power than doctrinal acumen or religious piety. That's the message of John the Baptist in today's passage.

Over the course of thousands of years God called a people out of the nations, and formed them in his own image. Part of how God did this was that anytime his people encountered the natural pains of life, God walked with them so that the pain of life wouldn’t wreck them, but would make them stronger, more faithful, more beautiful, and ultimately more able to bear the image of God to the surrounding world. This seems to be what Malachi has in mind in our passage for today.