Ezra 10 is
a great chapter to follow Ezra 9.
Although the topic of Ezra 10 is challenging to embrace, the overarching
result is a great victory. Let’s talk
about the topic, first.
Putting Away Foreign Wives
What we
have here is tough to interpret into the modern lens because Ezra is telling
the people of Israel that they must put away the “foreign” wives – wives who
were neither Jewish by birth nor willing to convert to Judaism. Basically, Ezra is telling the people to
divorce them and get rid of them.
Yesterday I mentioned that in the Christian era this is not the only
perspective as Paul talks about a Christian spouse staying loyal to a
non-Christian spouse in hopes of winning them to Christ. But these Hebrew people were living under a
different era and their context was totally different. This was a group of people who were just
coming back into faith with God and if they weren’t kept in check the path to
backsliding would be quick.
Generally Speaking
As I said
yesterday, if we can talk about what is happening here in general terms of sin
and not specifically in the context of marriage then we can see it really as
phenomenal advice. We are to put away
our sin. We are to cast aside those
things that will not bring us into a closer relationship with God. We are to take our repentance seriously and
bear fruit out of our repentance.
That is
precisely what the Hebrew people do.
Well, most of them, anyway. We
are told about a stipulation that any Hebrew who has married a foreign woman
and who does not take the vow to put the woman aside loses their land – I’ve
got to believe that the stipulation was put in there for a reason. But the vast majority of the Hebrew people
fulfill the requirement. They honestly
do repent and bear fruit of their repentance.
And that is a very good thing.
However,
notice that it takes a while for the fruit to come. Originally the plan was for all the
proceedings to be done in a day or two.
But it was the rainy season and miserable weather to travel and conduct
this kind of business. So each family
group was appointed leaders and elders who would come around to them and clear
the barrier of sin that was between them and God. And the work gets done, just in a much longer
period of time. {Most people think that what originally was hoped to take 1-3 days
actually took 3-4 months to complete.}
It Just Takes Time
I think
there is a pretty intentional lesson for us to learn here, too. We want repentance to be immediate. We want the effects of our repentance to be
immediate. We want to change things and
make them right with God here and now.
Of course, spiritually that did happen that quickly with Jesus on the
cross. But in the real world where that
spiritual truth plays out, things like this never happen that fast. Dealing with sin is a process. Actually, dealing with sin is a process of
processes. Understanding sin is its own
process. Confessing sin is usually a
process. Understanding how to properly
repent and change one’s ways is a process.
Taking that repentance seriously and actually doing it is another
process. Right there we can see that
while God justified His people in the single moment of Christ’s death on the
cross – that fact working itself out into humanity is a series of
processes. It’s going to take some time.
Just like
Ezra, we probably want our problems to be resolved here and now. But just like Ezra, when we realize that we
live in the world we had better accept that it’s going to take some time to
resolve our issues with God. And in the
end, that’s actually okay. The point
isn’t so much that I be perfect today as much as I understand that one day God
will make me free of sin through His resurrection and redemptive process. What is important is that I get to that
point. When it happens is far less
significant than whether it happens or not.
As I’ve
grown older and experienced more spiritual warfare, I’ve actually come to
understand that the process is usually better than the result anyways. The obvious exception to this is God’s final
act of remaking us in His perfect image in eternal life. But that great moment aside, I find that I
learn and grow far more when I am willing to take the time to listen to God and
truly change my character in obedience to God than when I make some snap
decision and force change in my life without growing into it. Change done through a period of waiting and
listening is always more fruitful than sudden change. At least that’s true in my life – especially as
I get older.
A Final Ponder
As we
conclude Ezra, let me ask a simple question meant for deeper pondering. Which task was easier for Ezra, rebuilding
the Temple or rebuilding the spirituality among the people?
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