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So we've been studying Ezra for six chapters so far, and it's only here that Ezra enters the scene! It's quite an entrance too; the chapter begins with his heritage before describing his travelling companions, then goes on to detail the contents of a letter sent by Artaxerxes the king, before Ezra himself writes in the book! This is truly exciting stuff so I will try to contain myself and be as brief as possible, by summing up in four sections; two this week, two next week:

Ezra's genealogy (Ezra 7:1-6)

This passage begins with a long genealogy of Ezra - why is this so important that it's included in the Bible? The truth is that his heritage is quite impressive - he descended from Aaron the chief priest himself! Although this is not instantly applicable to our daily lives, as we do not have a family line of chief priests in the same way that the Jews of the Old Testament did, we can learn two major lessons from this.

Firstly, if we are parents then it is our responsibility to hand our good traits to our children. As Aaron prepared his sons well to continue the family line we must make sure that we are bringing up our children well, to be strong in the faith and to live for the glory of Jesus.

Secondly, there is a challenge for us to look, not at the physical heritage of our leaders, but at the spiritual heritage. By looking at those who have deeply impacted and brought up our leaders we can often gauge well what our leaders will be like. My senior pastor, for example, was discipled as a young man by a leader, now dead, who was respected the world over. With that foundation it would be reasonably difficult to grow into a poor Christian.

The other travellers (Ezra 7:7-10)

Something of interest in this passage is the vast number of other travellers that accompanied Ezra, and I think we can learn two massively important things from this witness.

Firstly, I feel like I must underline the importance of team. Anyone who tries to do ministry alone will burn out - we all need team around us to support us. An example of this done well would be Billy Graham - although his face and name are well known on his own, you cannot read anything about his life without reading about the support from his wife, family and the team he built around him - when he was on a high they held him there, and when he became sad they were there to comfort him. More recently, the news that Todd Bentley has separated from his wife is a testimony to the fact that doing too much on your own is too much to do! An elder at my church pointed out as the Lakeland news was beginning to reach our area that his concern was mainly for him personally, that without a team more actively supporting him that he would burn out or put unnecessary pressure on other areas of his life.

Secondly, I think that Ezra here is highlighting an important truth - that the preacher is not the only or most important role that we need in the church. By surrounding himself by so many other travellers, he was ensuring that as he arrived in Jerusalem it would not be him that the Israelites noticed, but the enormous crowd with him. Too often it is a tendency of us as church members to look at the preacher on a Sunday morning and think, 'isn't this a great church because of our preacher?' or even 'isn't he a great guy because he can preach so well?' Rather, we should recognise that he is a faithful servant with the gifts that God has given him, just as we should be with the gifts He has entrusted to us!

The second half of Ezra 7 will be looked at next week, where we actually get a sneak peek into Ezra's personal diary! I'm excited, and I hope you are too!

"Voice of Inspiration" from Andy Castro

Long Life-Psalms 91:16