EZRA Lesson 12, Chapters 6 and 7 It is a fascinating and unique style of the Holy Bible to thoroughly, carefully, and some times to expansively document God’s instructions to a Prophet or a King or to His people in general (as with the Law of Moses), but then instead of elaborating on His worshippers […]

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EZRA Lesson 11, Chapters 5 and 6 We’ll conclude chapter 5 of Ezra this week and get well into chapter 6. What has taken us so long is that we have chosen this point in the book of Ezra to pause to examine the prophets Haggai and Zechariah who arose to both encourage and warn […]

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EZRA Lesson 10, Chapter 5 continued (2) We’ll continue today with the Book of Ezra, but we’ll also continue our detour into the books of the prophets who prophesied concerning the Temple and Jerusalem in that era. There are so many valuable principles and lessons that are directly applicable to us when we include the […]

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EZRA Lesson 9, Chapter 5 continued We’ll continue today with the Book of Ezra; however we are in the midst of a substantial detour to look at the invaluable contributions that the Prophets Haggai and Zechariah made to the rebuilding of the Temple. These two Prophets were, predictably, bringing to the Jewish returnees the encouraging […]

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EZRA Lesson 8, Chapter 5 If ever there was proof that history is cyclical and that God-patterns repeat themselves endlessly, then we ought to readily see the fascinating similarities between the challenges that the Jews of Ezra’s day faced trying to re-establish their unique Torah-based Hebrew culture in their own historic homeland after years of […]

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EZRA Lesson 7, Chapter 4 If Ezra and Nehemiah (which is the story of the return of the Jews to Judah and the rebuilding of the Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem) demonstrate one thing that is rather easy for us to identify with, it is that a religious conviction is often mistakenly perceived […]

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EZRA Lesson 6, Chapters 3 and 4 As we continue in Ezra chapter 3 today, let’s review last week for just a moment. Let us always keep in mind that the underlying foundation for both Ezra and Nehemiah is the zealous desire of many thousands of emancipated Jewish exiles for restoration and renewal of proper […]

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EZRA Lesson 5, Chapters 2 and 3 We will continue in Ezra chapter 2 to begin our lesson today. What we’ve seen thus far in the Book of Ezra is what we can call “the preliminaries”. Chapter 1 begins by recording the official end of the Babylonian exile, and it ends by means of Media-Persia, […]

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EZRA Lesson 4, Chapter 2 The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are commonly referred to as the story of the restoration of Judah (or Israel) that comes at the end of their 70 year Babylonian exile. But restoration in what sense? Typically it is meant as the restoration of the Temple and the re-establishment of […]

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EZRA Lesson 3, Chapter 1 After an extensive introduction, we’ll open the Book of Ezra for the first time today. It’s a short chapter, but we’re going to go into some detail that will help us the rest of the way through Ezra and then Nehemiah. First, however, to keep things in perspective, and to […]

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