Daily Archives: May 28, 2018

Daily Bible Study

May 29, 2018 Bible Study

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezra 1-2.

    This is another one of those passages which I would probably just skim over if I was not writing this blog. At first glance (and second and third) it is just a dry account of the names of the first wave of returned Exiles. However, when you spend some time seeking how this passage matters to living our faith today you start to see some things. For me the key element here is how God used, and blessed, Cyrus. Cyrus was not a “believer” (he was neither Jewish, nor a convert to Judaism), but he still chose to honor God. After Cyrus conquered Babylon he went all in on returning Jews to the land of Israel, but he did not do so forcibly. Cyrus could have just issued an edict allowing the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple, but Cyrus went beyond that. The first step beyond just allowing them to return was that he encouraged them to do so. Then he called upon their neighbors where the Jews were living in Exile to provide them with financial assistance for relocating back to Jerusalem and the land of Israel. Finally, he removed items which Nebuchadnezzar had dedicated to other gods, which had originally come from the Temple, from the temples of those gods and gave them to the returning Exiles to take to Jerusalem. It is worth noting that the neighbors of those Exiles who chose to return generously aided them in preparing for their journey.

Daily Bible Study

May 28, 2018 Bible Study — The Importance of Learning to Read God’s Word

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 34-36.

    Josiah was Hezekiah’s great gandson. Unlike Hezekiah, Josiah’s father and grandfather were not godly men. They encouraged the people to worship idols. Josiah was placed on the throne when he was eight years old. Something led him to begin seeking the Lord when he was a young man of sixteen. The passage does not spell it out, but, if you read closely and do the math, you realize that Josiah began to act to turn his people to God as soon as he reached his majority and was no longer subject to regents. He did not limit himself to the traditional lands of Judah. Josiah extended his efforts to stamp out idolatry into lands which had been controlled by all of the tribes.

As an aside, if we combine what we read here with the account of King Hezekiah’s Passover celebration we discover that the Kings of Judah extended their control, to at least some degree, to all of the lands of Israel after the Assyrians destroyed the Northern Kingdom.

    I find it the differences between King Hezekiah’s religious reforms and those of King Josiah interesting. King Hezekiah restored the Temple and called people to worship God, then, in response to their worship experience, the people turned from idolatry and destroyed the idols in the land. On the other hand, Josiah acted to eradicate idolatry, then he restored the Temple and called the people to worship God. As we read today’s passage we discover that by King Josiah’s time the people of Israel had lost their knowledge of what God required of them. They clearly still had an understanding that God required that they worship only Him, but had lost direct knowledge of God’s Law. It seems to me that King Josiah thought he was doing pretty well at acting according to God’s will when he sent the priests to clean out and restore the Temple. However, when the priests found a copy of the Book of the Law and read it to him, Josiah realized how far he, and the entire people of Israel, were falling short of keeping their end of their covenant with God. Josiah acted at once to do his best to put things right with God, even after being told that such would only delay the coming disaster, not forestall it.

    We see in the timeline of Chronicles the importance of thoroughly spreading knowledge and understanding of God’s Word. When Jehoshaphat was king, he sent teachers throughout the land to teach the people God’s word. I am convinced that as part of that effort they taught many of the people to read and write, so that they could make copies of God’s word. But over time, those copies would have been lost or destroyed and no one provided the leadership to replace them. In Hezekiah’s time, the people, at least the most educated members of society, still know the contents of God’s Law. However, by Josiah’s time that detailed knowledge had been lost, apparently even among the priests and Levites. This passage also shows us that God provides, because when Josiah sought the Lord a copy of God’s Law was found.