Good works can be an effective handmaiden to the Good News. You are indeed a profitable Christian if everyone is glad to see you coming, if eyes light up at your approach, especially if little children love to be with you and are sorry when you must go. You are a profitable Christian if you […]
True hope can only be found when we choose what Jesus thinks over what the god of this world thinks. And no wonder. One is a liar and a murderer from the beginning. The Other is the Giver of real Life, and that in abundance. This story, set—of all things—in a funeral home, shares the […]
Sometimes we need those people we least expect to remind us of our obligations to the Lord. What did the majority of Judah’s kings have in common? They abandoned, desecrated, or destroyed the house of the Lord! A recurring motif in Scripture is that God would often turn from His chosen people to seek those […]
Read More… from February 28, 2025 — Don’t Forget Your Offerings!
Armies break things and kill people. But Cyrus wants the Jews to return, rebuild, and refurbish the temple. Imagine this! Cyrus the Great was not only a king but an empire builder. His armies subjugated people, smashing their fortresses and pillaging their treasures. He had done it scores of times. According to Rüdiger Schmitt, professor […]
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 […]