The Election
Far from this last Tuesday’s elections being a “saving experience” for our nation, I think that Ezra says it best in the beginning of Ezra 9:8
“But now, for a brief moment, grace has come from Yahweh. . . “
The Meaning
By application, this is a message for the church! Regardless, let me say that more clearly, REGARDLESS of the side of the aisle you prefer, this is a wake-up call to the church! God is “giving us new life, so that we can rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins. . . ” (Ezra 9:9m)
But remember how this prayer from Ezra started. Look at verse 6
“My God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face toward You. . . “
And here is my question to you, to myself, to all of us, REGARDLESS of our party affiliation, are we willing, like Ezra, to honestly view our sins as he did? I would remind many of you that you have been praying 2 Chronicles 7:14 for our nation. But have you forgotten the main point of the verse? The main point IS NOT the healing of our land, it is the forgiveness of our sins!
Mixed or Interracial Marriages
And finally, there will be those who will want to ignore this passage because they wrongly apply the first two verses of this chapter. They will read it and WRONGLY assume that God is against mixed marriages. My friends, my bigoted friends, on both sides of the aisle, the meaning of these two verses is found in the center of verse 1:
“. . . whose detestable practices. . . “
The reason for the asking of forgiveness was NOT because of mixed marriages but because the people of God turned from God. If you still wonder about God’s view of mixed marriages just check out Jesus’ lineage.
My friends, hear the Word of our Lord, thru Ezra’s prayer:
“. . . You, our God, have punished us less than our sins deserve. . . . no one can stand in Your presence because of this [guilt]. See Ezra 9:13e and 15e.”
Blessings or Blessings?
I like to end my posts with a simple, “Blessings my friends” but may I end it a bit differently, in light of my message today?
Expect blessings my friends, but only as you come humbly before your God,
Mark, just as 2 Chron 7:14 is often misinterpreted by contemporary Christians as being addressed to America, so too it is a misinterpretation to apply Ezra 9:9 as a message to America. Unfortunately, this bad hermeneutic is extremely prevalent amongst American Christians today who want to “nationalize” the teachings of scripture as though the inspired writers were writing to an American audience. This is why it is so important for teachers of scripture to receive sound training. Most do not. Even most seminaries today provide no rigorous orthodox training in exegesis and hermeneutics. Most seminaries are stressing “leadership” and “church impact” models, rather than sound training in bible interpretation. Therefore most congregations are shepherded by pastors who do not bring forth the meaning of God’s word in context. Add to this the onslaught of popular “teachers” propagating scripture as a means to “receiving God’s best for your life” through obedience to a set of “life principles” supposedly found in scripture, and the result is a massive contemporary Christian culture who have been trained to read themselves into scripture while front loading the interpretations of every passage with their own 21st century presuppositions. There are very important rules of interpretation that few pastors and “teachers” follow, and even fewer of their congregants are even aware of. Here are a few:
1) Audience – Scripture was not written to America, or Africa, or Japan, etc. Scripture is given by God FOR modern Christians, and all Christians throughout history. However each book of the Bible was written TO a specific audience. The job of the interpreter is to find out the audience intended by the author. The meaning of the passage can only be found after we understand WHO the author was writing the book TO. In every case, including Ezra and 2 Chronicles … the books are NOT written TO Americans. America is NOT the audience.
2) Occasion – Whether to the ancient people of Israel, or to the church at Corinth, or to the pastor Timothy, the author always has a reason, or occasion for writing. It is up to the interpreter to seek to understand the reason for the author’s writing before he can understand the meaning of a book or passage.
3) Context, context, CONTEXT! Extremely important, and one of the most often and easily neglected rules of interpretation. The context is ALWAYS the time, place, historical setting, social setting, and cultural setting of the author and his ancient audience. This one usually requires a lot of homework, and is therefore often disdained by pastors and their congregants in our fast paced “twitter” society. In each passage of the Bible, the author is delivering a message that can ONLY be understood when we understand how the ancient audience would have heard it in THEIR context, NOT our’s. Context also depends upon the flow of the author’s thought from the first chapter through the last chapter, according to his intended meaning for his audience.
Examples: Ezra is the commonly accepted author of the book of Ezra by most scholars. His audience were the Jewish exiles returning from the Babylonian captivity under Zerubbabel. His purpose for writing is summed up well by the commentator Louis Goldberg: “… even as God promised Abraham that he would be a God to his descendants through all their generations, so the newly established remnant in the ancient homeland represents the sustained people of Israel” Note that in Ezra, God is fulfilling His promise to sustain a remnant of the people of Israel NOT the people of America. As much as many modern American Christians would love to believe, America is NOT a chosen nation by God. The nation that God is dealing with in Ezra is ancient Israel under the Old Covenant, and ONLY ancient Israel. God made no covenant with the United States of America.
The Chronicles, originally a single book, are simply, and strictly journals, or annals of the events of the years of the ancient nation of Israel, that retell the histories portrayed in the books of Samuel and Kings in much more detail and often from a different perspective. THEREFORE, the historical and cultural events that surround the passage of 2 Chron 7:14 are the events of ancient Israel in THEIR historical context NOT our modern American context. In verse 14 “my people” are NOT 21st century Americans post Donald Trump election. In the same way, “heal their land” is talking about the literal land promised to the Israelites under the Old Covenant, namely from Jerusalem throughout ancient Judea up to the borders described for them in the Old Testament. This is firm evidence that the writer in Chronicles is NOT referring to the continental United States and it’s boundaries. In context, the Lord is speaking to Solomon, warning him that the ancient Israelites will remain in the land He has given THEM, so long as THEY do not forsake His statutes and commands and serve and worship other gods. God NEVER made this promise to America. Yaweh further explains that if His people, THE ISRAELITES do break His commandments and turn to other gods, causing the Lord to punish them through the withholding of rain, the sending of pestilence and locusts to “devour the land” (2Chron 7:13), He will only relent and “heal their land” if they humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways” in verse 14. This promise ONLY applies to the nation of Israel under the conditions of the Old Covenant that God made with THEM. He did NOT make this covenant with America.
Mark, so important to get good training before teaching the Bible. Teachers are to be few, but well trained according to scripture. Yet it is hard to find good training these days and too easy to find popular books and teachers that model poor and even false interpretive methods. There are seminaries that train well, but they are few and far between and you must look carefully. Contemporary churches are often too quick to fill perceived teaching positions and even pastoral positions with unqualified people, because they are many times more focused on “having an impact” and “growing a ministry” than they are on delivering the word of God rightly divided.
If you’re interested, much healthy perspective of the failings of the popular contemporary Christian teaching culture can be gleaned from listening to Chris Rosebrough’s evaluation of modern sermons on his internet radio show “Fighting for the Faith”.
I hope you receive my commentary with grace. It is given with a desire to build upon our love for Christ and His Gospel.
Love in Christ to you brother,
Phil Owen
My friend, not only is it received with grace, I approved its inclusion under my post, for, without a doubt, I agree with you, 100%! I often tell people that the right application to 2 Chronicles 7:14 is NOT about God healing our USA, but about Him healing the breach caused between us and Him for our sin.
However, I would ask you a question, do you agree that we can, and should, apply scripture to our lives?
Love you man,
Mark
Yes Mark I would agree that we should apply scripture to our lives. And I would agree with your application of 2 Chronicles 7:14 “healing the breach caused between us and Him for our sin” as long as the “us” is individual sinners repenting with faith toward Christ. The “us” can not be seen as America, which many Christians who have been taught to “pray this verse back to God” will often do. And I would see this application only valid if it is seen as taking note by example of how God dealt with the Israelites based on their failure to keep His Law. Only then can we can draw from this passage a general truth about God, that He is willing to receive humble repentant sinners, and the application MUST point specifically to Christ and His Gospel. The difficulty in application for us, is that there is a conditional promise made by God to the Israelites based on their obedience. Our acceptance by God in Christ is by grace through faith apart from works (obedience to the Law) So, our right application of this passage depends on our understanding of what the orthodox, confessional Lutherans describe as the doctrine of Law and Gospel. A serious boundary is crossed when contemporary christians attempt application of 2 Chron 7:14, while seeing this verse as a literal promise to THEM, rather than for what it truly is in context … a literal promise to ISRAEL alone. If we take the Lord’s promise to Israel in 2 Chron 7:14 for ourselves, or our country literally, as was given to Israel alone, then we are apt to believe that God’s acceptance of us, or our country, is confirmed by how well we see ourselves or our country keep God’s laws. If we remove abortion & gay marriage He will approve and bless us, if we do not, He will look with disfavor upon America. This is the doctrine of Law. The same for our own personal Christian lives … if I believe that God’s blessing of my personal “land”, i.e. my marriage, my job, my happiness, or “God’s best for my life” is contingent upon my ability to keep His commandments or continually turn from sin, then there is very little assurance left for MY SALVATION based on grace alone in Christ alone through faith alone. In other words, I may be indirectly adding the Law to my own salvation, for I will always be looking for a TYPE of restoration of my “land” to confirm God’s favor. This is one of the dangers inherent in believing that I can pray ALL of scripture back to God. The promise in 2 Chron 7:14 is a LITERAL restoration of the land and the temple worship and sacrifices back to God’s chosen people Israel, based on their fulfilling of the terms of the Old Covenant … that they obey His commands and abstain from idolatry, and subsequently come back into favor with Him. If Israel had obeyed, they would literally see the Lord keep them safely in the land. This is the literal promise, and WE cannot apply that promise to ourselves, or our country, therefore we cannot “pray this back to God”. If my remaining safely in the forgiveness of God, i.e. “remaining safely in the land” depended on my obedience to His commands, I would be eternally damned. Therefore, I must be very careful with any perceived specific literal application of this verse to my own life, and definitely it can NEVER apply to the USA. The failure of Israel to remain in God’s favor failed because of their ability to repent and keep God’s Law. If I pray this verse back to God with expectation that I would see a positive effect by God in my life based on my faithfulness to keep His Laws … then woe on me. Israel could not do it. Neither can I and neither can America. THEREFORE, a proper application of this passage rightly interpreted, is that it points to my need for the Gospel, apart from the keeping of the Law. This is what I mean by rightly interpreting this passage, and then applying it to my life, based on an understanding of the doctrine of Law and Gospel. So, rather than apply from this passage a condition of Law(turning from wickedness) resulting in favor, I should rather see this passage as inspiring me to be thankful for the Gospel … namely, that my acceptance before God is NOT contingent on keeping the Law like Israel’s was in the 2 Chronicles passage. Instead of Law, my acceptance with God is wholly dependent upon the Gospel of Christ, Him having shed His blood to redeem me, a continual and yet sorrowful Law-Breaker! Do you see the difference between “praying this verse” (2 Chron 7:14) back to God, based on my own pre-suppositions, out of context, thereby drawing out a personal application based on a wrong interpretation, … as compared to rightly interpreting this passage, in context, whereby the only application I get, is that I see more clearly my need for Christ? If Christians are taught to pray back to God verses or passages of Scripture without understanding right interpretation, they risk misunderstanding Scripture, and thereby risk praying back to God a promise or application of scripture that was never literally intended for them. Therefore, this points back to the great lack of good teaching amongst Christians today. Lots of books and seminars and “ministries”, but very few able exegetes. We need more properly trained pastors, feeding the word of God rightly divided and modeling for their flocks right interpretive methods. Otherwise, I fear that prolonged, even well intentioned efforts to encourage Christians to “pray scripture back to God” may often result in Scripture misunderstood out of context, and therefore wrongly applied. And too often this means the Gospel of Christ, which even Christians need to hear preached for the strengthening of their faith … takes a back seat, and that is very sad indeed.
Love you brother,
Phil
Then you’ll like this Phil, because I always tell people, “I’m glad you’re praying, but, have you ever read verse 15? In verse 15, God says, ‘now I will listen to what you have to say.’ meaning that verse 14 ISN’T a prayer! It is what God wants us to do, and what is that? To simply humble ourselves and seek His face, NOT His arm or His hand, for me know it is long enough and strong enough to handle our needs. God wants us to seek His face and then we will see, if we are humble, our short comings, and what will we do? We will ask forgiveness where necessary.”
Anyway, what started this discussion was the Ezra 9 passage, and I’m curious, do you consider it a passage that we can apply to ourselves? Recognizing, of course that we are putting it in the context of New Testament, post cross, secure salvation, theology? When we do, I believe that the Ezra 9 passage is an encouragement to us, to live with the humility that says, what I deserve, is not grace, but what He gives, and sometimes for a brief moment, is grace.
None of us knows when the Lord will return, but we do know that Paul said things will go from bad to worse, and yet, He does, at times, give us a time of rest. And I believe that these times of rest are opportunities for us to glorify God, as should be the times of difficulty.
Anyway, love you man!
Mark
PS How’s married life?
Phil, rereading the post this morning, I made two additions.
Under “The Meaning” I added the words, “By application”
and then at the end where I said, “hear the Word of our Lord” I added, “thru Ezra’s prayer.”
Mark, I ask your patience. The answer to your question “can we apply Ezra to ourselves?” requires a thorough explanation. Please bear with me…
I would agree with you, in regards to Ezra chapter 9, that, generally speaking, we can make application here for the church. However your statement that “This is a message for the church!” is only valid when the meaning of the passage has already been found, without any reference to the events of the November 8, 2016 election. In what appears to be a quote from the HCSB translation, “But now, for a brief moment, grace has come from Yahweh. . . “ you appear to be indicating that God has used the events of the presidential election to give a moment of respite and peace to the church, that we might seek the forgiveness of sins. I believe this perspective still somewhat derives the meaning of the passage from a sense of contemporary American Christian culture. The application could be driving the interpretation, rather than the other way around. To explain, let me take a moment to address the concept of “mixed marriages”.
I would assert that God was definitely against mixed marriages for the nation of Israel. Yahweh had clearly commanded that his chosen people were not to intermarry with the idolatrous pagan peoples of the promised land. “You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, 4 for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.”(Deut 7:3-4)
Of course God’s command not to intermarry was not about racism as T. Brand Cabal in The Apologetics Study Bible states:
“Ezra’s reaction to the intermarriages was not driven by racism. His concern was a spiritual one. These “surrounding peoples” (v. 2) adhered to other faiths”
It is this adoption by Israel, of the false teachings of other “faiths”, often through the influence of mixed marriages that had formed the basis for God’s judgment of His people through exile to Babylon.
Now the Israelites, having completed their punishment by Yahweh in Babylon, have returned by God’s grace to a fresh start in their Judean homeland with the goal of reestablishing their relationship with God through the Old Covenant system of worship and sacrifices given under Moses. This is the literal “brief moment (where) favor has been shown by the Lord our God… To grant us a little reviving in our slavery” We cannot compare this “brief moment” to the 2016 presidential election, nor are we Christians under the slavery of the Persians as the returning Israelite exiles were when they arrived from Babylon.
However, when the clear meaning of this passage is found in context, as an experience of the Jews of the discipline of the Lord under the Old Covenant, an application can then be found for the modern church, as follows …
Obviously the reinstatement of the Mosaic worship and sacrifices would also require the reinstallation of the Levitical priesthood. And yet, those who had been charged under the Mosaic covenant with the responsibility of carrying out the ministry of worship and sacrifice, the Levites, were found to “have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations … For they had taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands.” (Ezra 9:1-2)
The effects of mixed marriages amongst the Levitical priesthood would cause devastating negative consequences for the purity of the ancient Israelite religion.
The commentator Israel Loken explains this well:
“The influence of a foreign mother, with her connection to another religion, on her children would ruin the pure religion of the Lord and would create a syncretistic religion running contrary to everything in the Jewish faith”
The emphasis of Ezra’s prayer is not on “forgiveness of sin” as you had suggested. Walter Elwell in his commentary points this out:
“What is interesting is that Ezra makes no request of God to forgive the nation; instead, he seems to imply that the only proper response is for all the people to confess and deal with their sin.”
The question of the nature of this sin is the crucial element in understanding the meaning of this passage. The sin is very specific. Consequently, this is where many popular commentators and modern Bible teachers miss it because of a fascination with falsely perceived overtones of Christian nationalism. We can see an example of this misguided type of interpretation in a statement from Weirsbe’s commentary on the Ezra passage:
“One of the maladies of society today is that people are no longer shocked by sin and willing to do something about it. Political leaders can flagrantly break the law and not only get away with it but be admired by the public and be elected to office again. Polls indicate that many Americans don’t consider “character” to be an important factor when it comes to choosing leaders. In spite of all the noise about “religious revival” and “mega-churches,” God’s people don’t seem to be functioning well as salt and light in society. The salt has lost its flavor and no longer stings and prevents corruption, and the light is hidden under a bushel (Matt. 5:13–16).”
Wiersbe goes on to say “Words and actions that would have made earlier generations blush in shame are today part of the normal “entertainment” diet of the average TV viewer. When a nation turns sin into entertainment and laughs at what ought to make us weep, we are in desperate need of revival.”
This “revivalistic” lens of interpretation Wiersbe uses when surveying the Ezra passage is very common amongst contemporary Christians, pastors, and popular “teachers”. It is not true that we can use this passage as a proof text that Christians in America should be praying for the ability to turn from sin, so that their impact in our society as “salt and light” would somehow instigate revival in the United States. Should Christians turn from sin? Absolutely! But this is not the point of the passage.
So what is the point? What is the meaning in context, and thereby a potential application for the church?
M. Brenemen’s comments are very useful:
“The same problems that faced the Israelites face the community of faith today, in a culture that is increasingly given to an anti-Christian worldview. Paul’s warning is of utmost importance: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Cor 6:14)
There is an admissible confession of sin by the modern church similar to that of the confession of Ezra. However, it is not a confession of a multiplicity of sins for the sake of revival in America as Wiersbe would lead us to believe, rather, it is a confession of THE sin, a specific sin, of having mingled the influences of our modern culture with the clear doctrines of Scripture and the orthodox Christian faith, such that proper Bible interpretation and purity of teaching have become defiled.
And just as the faithless men of the Levitical priesthood, the officials and chief men, were foremost in compromising the purity of religion in Ezra’s day through the effects of mixed marriages to pagans, so many, many of today’s pastors and teachers, overcome by the temptations to “have an impact” and “grow a ministry” consume book after book from the latest popular Christian authors, and flock to seminar after seminar, in order to learn how to grow their churches by “making disciples who make disciples” or they run to leadership conference after leadership conference in hopes of learning how to build teams and influence for the sake of supposedly “having an impact for the Gospel”. These misguided aspirations and this kind of thinking result from the mingling or “mixed marriage” of the church’s teaching with the influence of American pragmatism and marketing ideals. A huge glut of modern day, multi-media teaching personalities, broadcasting through satellite and over the Internet, have become the new authoritative “magisterium” of the church. Rather than be drawn to Sunday worship with the expectation of hearing the meaning of a Bible book or a passage of Scripture exposed by a well-trained pastor, rightly interpreting the word of God line by line, which many today call “lecturing”, modern congregants instead choose their church and their pastor based on whether they will hear messages which pull “principles” from the word of God which can somehow help them appropriate “God’s best for their life” through their faithful obedience, which ultimately enslaves them to the Law, and effectively turns their eyes away from Christ and His Gospel. “Obey-blessings-results” has become the common formula offered by far too many “shepherds” of God’s flock. Culturally infected “itching ears” in the visible church prefer to hear marriage, money, or leadership principles from Andy Stanley or supposed revelations given to the church through the likes of Beth Moore, one of many such “bible-twisters” foisted upon the modern church by the Lifeway Southern Baptist publishing house, a mighty Christian marketing machine. Lifeway, in fact, will gladly turn any available and enthusiastic member of your local flock into a capable(?) facilitator of their complete Bible “teaching” curriculum known as “Explore The Bible”, a series conveniently edited by popular authors contracted with their publishing empire, such as David Jeremiah and Tony Evans.
No longer is it acceptable for the church to do the hard work of discovering faithful men who can be rigorously trained as capable exegetes, who rightly interpret the word of God, and thereby are “able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2), preserving and handing down a heritage of sound teaching. As long as someone seems to know a lot of Bible, in spite of whether they rightly interpret it or not, and have proven themselves able to lead a “ministry” that makes an “impact” we readily place them in charge of teaching the sheep of the Lord Jesus Christ. And often they facilitate this “teaching” through a small group study of a best-selling book by a contemporary Christian author, thereby making the word of God simply an accessory to the popular, application-driven(results) teaching agenda.
So, the application for the church, of Ezra rightly interpreted, would be that we, as the church, and in particular the pastor-shepherds entrusted to oversee and protect the flock of God, would confess that we have corrupted our handling of God’s word and have made havoc of the teaching offices of the church, by giving in to the temptation to “inter-marry” correct interpretation of the word of God with the pragmatic influence of the world-view of our culture.
Is this sin of corrupted teaching forgivable? Of course! Forgivable through the means of Christ’s work on the cross. And it is Christ’s Gospel rightly preached to Christians … yes, I said Christians ..from the pulpit week after week, throughout the whole of Scripture, that feeds and strengthens the faith of believers, by giving them a clearer and deeper understanding of what Jesus actually did for them in removing the guilt of their sin through His blood and saving them from the just wrath of God. It is this Gospel food from the word of God, that engenders a deeper desire in Christians to know God’s word in truth, to see the love He has displayed for us in Christ. Because of the onslaught of popular, pragmatic, application-driven teaching throughout modern Christendom, Gospel preaching to believers has become unpopular and rare. Gospel preaching has for the most part become relegated to the evangelistic “revival” meetings and ministries. However, writing to the Corinthian church, Paul stated that “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”(1 Cor 2:1-2)
I think that we in the church today would do well to follow Paul’s example by remaining faithful to feed the believing flock of God a steady diet of the Gospel of his son, rightly exposed and explained throughout the pages of Scripture.
A strong and effective guard to help us refrain from dipping into this wide stream of popular teaching frenzy, that constantly parades itself falsely, as having been derived purely from the word of God.
I hope my commentary somehow proves useful to you brother.
By the way, yes, our marriage has proved to be a wonderful blessing from God, and has inspired much thanksgiving to the Lord Jesus.
I hope you and your lovely bride are doing well also! Please give her my love.
Blessings in Christ brother,
Phil
Phil, yes we are doing well. Thank you.
As usual, your great ability to parse words and to parse doctrine makes for lively discussion. But my message from this post is real simple.
Regardless of whether you consider Tuesday a loss or a win (see Wednesday’s post. . . https://markmirza.com/church-better-off-today/)
. . . let this time be a time of reflection upon your own life where God is working in you to deal with your dross that God may want to be dealt with, rather than pointing out others’ difficiencies.
Love you man!
Mark
Ok then! I don’t think I see the connection with the meaning of Ezra 9, but regardless … sure, personal reflection is a good thing, anytime.
Thanks for your response brother, love you too.
Phil