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Hearing God Speak through His Word

"But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word
in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance."
-- Luke 8:15 (NASB)

Archive for the '15: Ezra' Category

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Ezra 10:2-3 • According to the Law

Saturday, June 5th, 2010
“Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, said to Ezra, ‘We have been unfaithful to our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. So now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law.'”
    —Ezra 10:2-3 (NASB)

There seem to be those who hold to the notion that grace is a kind of “get out of jail free card”. They seem to think that God’s grace shakes clean the Etch-o-Sketch of their life, removing any remembrance of past sin without considering what that divine act means for the future. Does it mean you can now start over, recreating the list of sins from which you were just absolved? No, God’s grace is an opportunity. Specifically, it is the opportunity God provides for us to make things right so that we never again accumulate a list of sins needing to be undeservedly removed.
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Ezra 9:10-11 • When Pronouns Matter

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
“‘Now, our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken Your commandments, which You have commanded by Your servants the prophets, saying, “The land which you are entering to possess is an unclean land with the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations which have filled it from end to end and with their impurity.”‘”
    —Ezra 9:10-11 (NASB)

Leading the return of the second remnant from Persia to Israel, Ezra finds that the first remnant living in the land has returned to the original sins which got them all into trouble in the first place. There were specific people groups which God commanded to remain apart from, groups which God judged for destruction because they did not simply reject Him, but actively led everyone with whom they came into contact to follow false gods. Ezra is overwhelmed that these Believers have allowed the practices of the world to live side-by-side with what they claim is obedience to God’s ways. So is Ezra simply being polite — or perhaps empathetic — in his prayer by using the pronouns “we” instead of “they”?
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Ezra 7:9-10 • The Politics of Personal Application

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
“For on the first of the first month he began to go up from Babylon; and on the first of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, because the good hand of his God was upon him. For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.”
    —Ezra 7:9-10 (NASB)

It has been my experience that even the most naturally “gifted” person possessing exceptional expertise in a given field does not forgo study and commitment to that field, but that it merely comes much easier to them. Because of their heightened interest and seeming natural comfort with the topic, it may appear to the rest of us that is comes very easily, but a careful audit reveals that they actually spend quite a bit of time developing that predisposition into the formidable skill we so admire. So when an abundant desire is present for a deeper spiritual experience, why is it that so many pursue a supernatural kind of short-cut through signs, wonders, or even the gifts of the Spirit than directing it to the proven fertility of God’s Word?
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Ezra 5:11-13 • Ancient Political Activism

Sunday, May 30th, 2010
“‘Thus they answered us, saying, “We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth and are rebuilding the temple that was built many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished. But because our fathers had provoked the God of heaven to wrath, He gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this temple and deported the people to Babylon. However, in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, King Cyrus issued a decree to rebuild this house of God.”‘”
    —Ezra 5:11-13 (NASB)

The manner in which they responded and the way they ordered the response is actually quite fascinating. They could have just said, “Hey, buddy, it’s none of your bees wax ’cause we’re protected under the law!” But instead of invoking the protection of an earthly institution, they provided the context in which both it and the activity taking place were subject to an even higher authority. They deferred to making everyone involved at every earthly level evaluate the quality of their own obedience to God’s Word and ways. They took what we might today call a “civil rights” issue and turned it into an opportunity for every party to determine to what degree their involvement transcended the civil to embrace the spiritual.
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Ezra 4:1-3 • When There’s Nothing in Common

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
“Now when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the Lord God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ households, and said to them, ‘Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God; and we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here.’ But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of fathers’ households of Israel said to them, ‘You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves will together build to the Lord God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us.'”
    —Ezra 4:1-3 (NASB)

Well, isn’t that just plain RUDE? Isn’t this elitism and discrimination on a pedestal? These people wanting to join in God’s work — whom we’ll come to call “Samaritans” — were distant blood relations, had a belief in God at least to the degree that they sacrificed to Him, and had an enthusiasm for seeing the temple rebuilt. And yet there is no room for interpretation of the meaning of their response: “You have nothing in common with us”. The returning exiles had a very clear understanding of what defined someone as a true believer.
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Ezra 3:1-3 • The Important First Step

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
“Now when the seventh month came, and the sons of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered together as one man to Jerusalem. Then Jeshua the son of Jozadak and his brothers the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and his brothers arose and built the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. So they set up the altar on its foundation, for they were terrified because of the peoples of the lands; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, burnt offerings morning and evening.”
    —Ezra 3:1-3 (NASB)

Once upon a time it was the practice of Christians to so intensely study Scripture in order to provide the guidelines of how to build and operate a church that it became an entire field of study called “ecclesiology”. In fact, when a scholar pursued their own personal study to formerly document Christian faiths and beliefs in what came to be commonly termed “Systematic Theology”, it was quite rare if a chapter exclusively devoted to ecclesiology was not present. And yet it seems that Christian bookstores and websites are dominated far more by works extolling methodologies and programs developed from disciplines outside those strictly derived from biblical models.
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Ezra 1:1-2 • The Personal and the Global

Sunday, May 9th, 2010
“Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying: ‘Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.”‘”
    —Ezra 1:1-2 (NASB)

Here we are provided with two different instances of God’s Word at work. In the first, the writer of the book of Ezra understands this event to be the fulfillment of God’s Word through Jeremiah :”(Jeremiah 25:12; 29:10)”: which was a message mainly given to the Jews defining the length of God’s judgment. But where did Cyrus, a Gentile, learn of God’s intended role for him to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple? From God’s Word through Isaiah. :”(Isaiah 44:28)”: Personal adherence to God’s Word leads to an even greater fulfillment of God’s Word for everyone.
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