Good evening brothers,
As you know (I hope), I don't usually expect either group to get through all the material in terms of discussion, but I do want to circle back in this email on the last question I asked in the handout, the one about Ephesians Chapter 2. How might Ephesians Chapter 2 related to Ezra 1:1 - 4?
While we'll see the linkage throughout Ezra, Nehemiah, and especially Haggai, I want to make the point now:
Ephesians 2 begins with a focus on our individual salvation, but it ends with a picture of us as the Temple of God, as the corporate dwelling place of God, as the habitation of God.
Ezra begins with Cyrus releasing people from captivity to explicitly return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple.
We are saved as individuals to become part of the Body of Christ, the Church, the Temple.
The Jews were released from captivity to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
As we will see, when the Jews returned to Jerusalem they became preoccupied with building their own houses (Haggai begins with this problem). Yes, they did face opposition, but they (and we) can expect opposition; but whether they had opposition or not, they became self-focused.
While Christians in the West may assemble for Sunday mornings, do we really live in community? Or is church not much different from a civic or service organization? Do we put God's Living Temple first, do we put the Great Commission first; or do we put our own agendas first?
If we will ponder these things I think we may find the parallels between Ezra and the Church striking. God didn't draw us to Christ to do our own thing or have our "best life now" or any of the other self-centered teachings in cotton-candy Christianity that keep us from the Cross of Christ.
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi ought to be a challenge to our "me first" attitude as Christians who live in the most prosperous land on earth.
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