Tuesday

2-July

Ezra 1-2; Ps 81; 2 Corinthians 5

Ezra 1 & 2: Why did Cyrus let the Israelites return to Jerusalem? What motivated the people living in exile to return to Jerusalem? 

How were they going to pay for the rebuilding of the Temple?

2 Corinthians 5: How are we a new creation? How are we ambassadors of God? How do we become the righteousness of God in Jesus?

Journal Prompt: Paul refers to us as “Christ’s Ambassadors” (2 Corinthians 5:20). How well are you fulfilling your commission as Christ’s ambassador?

Answers:

Ezra 1& 2: the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus who said “he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem.” (v.2) The people were motivated by God:  “Everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem.”  The Message version says God ‘prodded’ them!

They were going to pay for the rebuilding of the Temple by accepting donations from neighbors, most probably fellow-Jews – who were not planning on returning.

Remember that the exile of the ten northern tribes to Babylon took place in 720 B.C.  This first wave to return takes place in 526 BC – nearly 200 years later.  So these would be the great-great-great grandchildren of the initial exiles. No doubt they had assimilated first into the Babylonian, then into the Persian cultures.  They probably led fairly comfortable lives as there is no evidence that they were enslaved. To put it into context, where were your ancestors 200 years ago?  Can you imagine the dilemma of returning to a place that they came from – especially one that was pretty much destroyed?  And if we want to think in broader terms, the ‘golden’ years of Israel were under the rule of Solomon.  He built the Temple in 950 B.C. After Solomon’s death things in Israel went downhill relatively quickly.  The kingdom was divided, they were under constant attack, This would be 450 years later – it would be like us going on Ancestry.com – finding the birthplace of an ancestor and thinking about returning to a place where our families inhabited in the mid-1700s. 

2 Corinthians 5: We are a new creation by leaving behind our old self and sins to begin a new righteous walk that serves God instead of us. We have a new name, new tendencies, new heart and nature. Old thoughts, principles, and practices are done away with. We have the Spirit of God in us. We will be His ambassadors, because He will work through us to reconcile others to Him. We are reconciled to God by forgiveness of sins through Jesus’ death.