Week 21 Ezra
When Ezra wrote Ezra he was writing history in chapters 1-6 and then autobiography in 7-10.
1-6 is the story of what happened during the time of Zerubabbel; 7-10 is the story of Ezra – and there’s fifty or sixty years between the two stories (it’s like talking about the Cuban Missile Crisis and then I jump into talking about the new carwash opening next week in Medicine Hat).
Anyway the Ezra-section of Ezra says two pretty interesting things about Ezra. First it says: Ezra was a scribe, well-versed in the law of Moses. Then it says: Ezra had determined to study and obey the law of the Lord and to teach those laws and regulations to the people of Israel.
So that’s a kind of time-lapse synopsis of Ezra:
He was well-versed in the law
He’d decided to study the law
He’d decided to obey the law
He’d decided to teach the law to people.
Those things didn’t happen on consecutive days. At some point – even though he doesn’t explicitly say so – Ezra probably just started by reading-through. Then as he kept reading-through he eventually became well-versed in the law. That right there is an excellent MHJ Reading Goal: keep reading-through until you get well-versed in the bible. Getting well-versed is a significant accomplishment.
Of course Ezra didn’t stop at Well-Versedness. But getting to the well-versed stage was a gigantic step.
Note: quotes from Ezra 7:6 & 10 (NLT)