7/5/2011 8:26:10 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: The return of the remnant Parts 2&3
(The leaders & The families and clans)
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezra 2:1-58
Message of the verses: 1 ¶ Now these are the people of the province who came up out of the captivity of the exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away to Babylon, and returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his city. 2 These came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum and Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel:”
I want to point out that I am not going to copy and paste all of the Scripture mentioned above because it mostly consists of names. Many of the names are very hard to pronounce and so it makes for very difficult reading. I am not saying that these names are not important for each and every name listed in these verses had the courage to leave their homes and possibility their families to go to the place where the Lord has called them to go and that in and of itself makes these names important.
There were leaders from each tribe listed in the first two verses with the exception of the tribe of Judah and that name is listed in Nehemiah chapter seven. Nahamani is the “so called” missing name who is the leader from Judah.
Dr. Wiersbe points out a couple of things that have caught my eye as I read over his commentary on these verses. The first is that leadership is very important in the economy of God as He will always call a great leader when He wants something accomplished and the names in the first two verses were leaders that He called to go to Jerusalem. The next point I want to make is that there were people from each tribe represented in this section and these were the names listed in chapter two. There are not ten lost tribes in Israel as some have speculated. James 1:1 reads as follows: “James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad: Greetings.” Acts 26:7 reads as follows: “the promise to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly serve God night and day. And for this hope, O King, I am being accused by Jews.”
I have written on this subject in earlier SD’s that when the nation of Israel was split after the death of Solomon that many of the people from the Northern kingdom came to Judah because of the idolatry that began with the making of the calf.
As far as the second sub-point Dr. Wiersbe begins his commentary with these words: “The long list of names given in Scripture, including the genealogies, may not be interesting to the average reader, but they’re important to the history of God’s people. Unless there’s an inheritance involved, most people today are more concerned about the behavior of their descendants than the bloodline of their ancestors; but that wasn’t true of the Old Testaments Jews. It was necessary for them to be able to prove their ancestry for many reasons.”
There were certain things that needed to be done by certain tribes and that is why all of the painstaking in writing down the names of these people took place. The Levites had special jobs along with the priests and so they had to be made accountable of whom their ancestors were. Another reason for the “common” Jew was that they had to prove that they who they said they were because the Lord needed a clean race of people to accomplish the things that He was going to accomplish through the nation of Israel. The Messiah would come through the line of David and even though the nation had been taken captive in Babylon that line was still going on. All of the people who are listed in this chapter are important to the work that the Lord was going to accomplish through them and therefore important to be listed here.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: There are times in my life when I do something that does not seem too important to me but then later on I think that this little seemingly insignificant was something that was of the Lord and that is what I suppose I use to think of names like this that are listed in different portions of God’s Word. I need to learn that what is important to God should be important to me and this goes with what can be described as “little” sins that at times doesn’t seem to be too insignificant to me but they are.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Psalm 139:23-24
2. Romans 12:1-2
3. Ephesians 6:10-18
4. Proverbs 3:5-6
5. Philippians 4:11-13
6. Remember the things that are significant to the Lord.
7/5/2011 9:46:35 AM
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