The Restoration - Ezra (1)

The group of men I meet with on Tuesday mornings is nearing the end of its exploration of the Minor Prophets and Daniel. Below is the material I sent out last week for this morning's time together. There may be something here for you. If you do nothing else, consider the last question I ask - the one about Ephesians Chapter 2.

Blessings,

Bob

We have three Minor Prophets left in our series; Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. However, because there is a break of more than 70 years between Zephaniah and Haggai, and because the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon and the deportation of much of Judah occurred at the beginning of this 70-year period, we need to capture the historical context of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi – otherwise we won’t appreciate what God is doing through these three prophets.

As a reminder, when we explored Daniel we saw that Daniel is the one prophet who spans this 70-year period; he was deported by the Babylonians (Daniel 1:1 – 7) at the beginning of the 70 years and he lived at least to the beginning of the end of the 70 years (Daniel 9:1 – 2). While Daniel is not technically considered a Minor Prophet, we began our study with him because of his historical position in the line of Biblical prophets, especially because he lived during the 70-year captivity.

For the next few weeks we’re going to look at the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. These three books close out the Biblical “history” section of the Sacred Text, which we can think of as beginning with Joshua, coming as Joshua does after the Pentateuch or Torah, the Five Books of Moses (which of course also contain history, but also covenants and the Mosaic Law).

Haggai and Zechariah both appear in Ezra, and we can’t really read one book without reading the other two books. Nehemiah builds on Ezra, and Esther is a nice exclamation point on the sovereignty of God during this time of transition for Judah.

While the entire Old Testament speaks of Christ and His Body, the Church, His Bride; I have long felt that Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi unveil critical paradigms for the Church. Sadly most Christians are unaware of the story of the 70-year captivity and the restoration of the Temple and Jerusalem, a restoration that was not without spiritual struggle and conflict. More than once I have desired that a congregation “see” the message of Haggai so that we would leave our self-centered narcissistic ways and deny ourselves and go “all-in” for Christ and the Cross. I am certain that I have not always been faithful to God’s message through Haggai, but that is my desire. But before we get to Haggai we’ll need to begin with Ezra.

Our passage for next week is Ezra 1:1 -4.

Compare Isaiah 44:24 – 45:7; Jeremiah 25:1 – 14; 29:10 – 14; Daniel 9:1 – 19 with Ezra 1:1 – 4.

How are these passages related to each other? What do you see? What do we learn about God?

What is the express purpose of Cyrus’s decree?

Why was Cyrus releasing the people of Judah from their captivity?

Why does God, through Christ, release us from our captivity to sin and death? (Compare 1 Thessalonians 1:9 – 10; 1 Peter 2:9 – 10; Romans 12:1 – 2)

Ephesians Chapter 2 – can you see the dual dimensions of the “individual and corporate” in Ephesians Chapter 2? How might this relate to Ezra 1:1 – 4?)