Theological Commentary: Click Here
As Ezra sets
up the worship, he is alerted to the fact that many of the Hebrew people have
intermingled with non-Hebrew people. In
the Western melting-pot mindset, we typically don’t see the big deal about
this. In the pre-Christian Hebrew
mindset, keeping the bloodlines pure had more to do with maintaining religious
purity than anything else. As other
nations were married into Hebrew families, the chance that people would start
worshipping other gods increased.
I love how
Ezra handles this moment. Ezra
immediately goes to pray about it. When
he prays, he doesn’t make excuses. He
doesn’t make light of it. He doesn’t try
to blow it off. In fact, Ezra is clear
how serious he takes the situation when he says that the Lord has been far more
gracious than the people deserved. That’s
what I love about Ezra’s leadership. Ezra
understands the breadth of human sinfulness.
I think that
this is one important dynamic in spirituality that often gets overlooked. We want to hear about forgiveness, and we
should. We want to hear about God’s
promise, and we should. But, we must
understand our need to hear about the consequences of our sinfulness as
well. As we see in this chapter, it is
our understanding of our sinfulness that teaches us a proper understanding of
God’s graciousness towards us.
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