Cyrus welded together the world’s first true super-power. But this one letter was more important than that! The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are parts of one continuous history. In fact, the Hebrew Bible had them bound together as one scroll. Although Ezra and Nehemiah seem to be doing very different work—one restoring the temple […]
God had done everything to isolate His people from the nations. Now He had scattered them there! “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia…” (Ezra 1:1). Right away we realize something dramatic has happened. Since the book of Joshua, the focus of the historical record has been the Promised Land, and, since David, […]
Read More… from February 25, 2025 — Ezra’s Place In The Bible
Have you ever touched a live wire before? Quite shocking, isn’t it? Did you know, Christian, that there’s a live wire within you? Find out what it is… […]
“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can,…to all the people you can….” —John Wesley Ezra continues the history of the Jewish people after the fall of Judah’s monarchy, but he is actually in the middle of a chain reaction of sorts. First in line is Jeremiah who, unlike the other […]
The Chronicles finish the Hebrew Bible. Ezra’s first paragraph is put here so the book ends in hope! What did this mean, “until the rule of the kingdom of Persia” (2 Chron 36:20)? The Chaldeans had swept Israel away to Mesopotamia. The Assyrians had assimilated Chaldea into their empire. Then Babylon, the new superpower, had removed the prime […]
Fanny J. Crosby is synonymous with gospel songs. At age 8, that’s right, at age 8, she decided to change sighing over her blindness to singing, and spent the next 86 years filling the worldwide church with praise to the Lord. […]
I was in prison this past week, waiting for a graduation ceremony to begin. Chatting with one of the men in that program, I asked if he could share something he’d learned. Moving his hands around his head in a mixing motion, he said it was all up there, but he couldn’t grab it. I knew […]
“The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked” (Nah 1:3). If there’s one thing to be learned from reading the Chronicles, it’s the longsuffering of God. “But You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness” (Ps 86:15, BSB). […]