Ezra 8: Servanthood and Worship of God
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· 7 viewsThe biblical understanding of servanthood has its foundation in people serving God in worship. The terms for “service” and “worship” are often interchangeable.
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Opening Thoughts
Opening Thoughts
So for this Sunday, please take time to read ; ,; ,; ;
Think on this question: "How do you display servanthood as a form of worship in your daily life?"
Think on this question: "How do you display servanthood as a form of worship in your daily life?"
Historical and Cultural Background
Historical and Cultural Background
Economically and socially, there may have been little to attract people to go to Jerusalem with Ezra.
Living conditions were probably better for them in Babylon, and this may be why the numbers given for this group are much smaller than those for the group recorded in (about five thousand, compared to about forty-two thousand).
This makes Ezra’s attitude all the more remarkable. He discerns that God is behind the opportunity presented to him and understands that he is uniquely positioned to lead an “exodus” as part of the prophesied restoration.
Let’s Read
Let’s Read
Read
Read
8:2 descendants of Phinehas . . . David.
The families of Phinehas and Ithamar represent the line of priests (; ). The family of David obviously represents the royal line with messianic associations. These families are important in order to make the group of returnees representative of all Israel and their journey thus eligible to be considered a new exodus. Within Ezra and Nehemiah, the Davidic descendants never become kings independent of Persian rule. Since the promised restoration includes a Davidic king ruling over Israel (), it is clear the restoration has not fully occurred by the end of this narrative and more fulfillment is yet to come.
8:3 the descendants of Parosh.
The family names listed in match almost identically those in . Since the earlier returnees were found to be genuine descendants of preexilic Israel (compare ) and heirs of the restoration promise, the same can be said for these.
8:9 of Joab.
The descendants of Joab are listed separately from the descendants of Pahath-Moab (v. 4), although Joab’s line is listed as part of Pahath-Moab in . This arrangement allows the number of nonpriestly and nonroyal families here to be twelve, a number used throughout this chapter to mark the returnees as representative of the twelve tribes of Israel (compare Jesus’s decision to choose twelve disciples in the New Testament [e.g., ]).
Read
Read
Read
8:15 no Levites there.
Ezra believes the group is unable to begin the journey without Levites. Their presence will allow the trip to match the first exodus, in which Levites were given specific tasks, including carrying sacred vessels for the tabernacle ().
Nykolaishen, Douglas J.E.. Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther (Teach the Text Commentary Series) (p. 84). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Read
Read
8:22 I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers.
Some have thought that Ezra’s approach is irresponsible, suggesting that he has backed himself into a corner by saying things he perhaps should not have. But it is hard to say with confidence that he acts wrongly, especially in light of the fact that God hears the prayers of the group and gives them safety.
What Ezra demonstrates is a faith in God that is much stronger than his faith in what a king could provide.
He recognizes God’s hand at work in bringing about Artaxerxes’s decree, the donations for the temple, and the arrival of Levites to participate in the trip. It is entirely appropriate for him to testify before the king as he does.
On further reflection he sees what may be perceived as a conflict between his trust in God and requesting military protection from the king, and so he refrains from the latter.
It should be noted, however, that it seems such protection is not provided or even offered by Artaxerxes. If the king is unconcerned, Ezra’s quandary seems more understandable. He might appear to have less faith in his own God than Artaxerxes has.
Given his awareness of God’s hand upon him, he chooses to rely on God for safety. He may also have felt that there was a specific promise to rely on. promises that those going out of Babylon carrying the Lord’s vessels will have God himself as their protector.
8:24 priests, namely, Sherebiah.
Many scholars agree that “namely” reflects an error in the transmission of the text and should instead be “and.” , ; show that the priests were to handle the sacred objects and the Levites were to carry them on the journey through the wilderness. So both priests and Levites were necessary for the task on the trip from Babylon, and Ezra designates twelve priests and twelve Levites (Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten others; see ) in particular.
8:28 You as well as these articles are consecrated.
In effect, Ezra pronounces the priests and Levites, as well as the items they are carrying, holy. This gives them a status similar to that of the tabernacle personnel and furnishings on the wilderness journey from Egypt.
The priests and Levites on Ezra’s journey would likely not have been functioning as such in Babylon, so Ezra inducts them into these roles anew.
Nykolaishen, Douglas J.E.. Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther (Teach the Text Commentary Series) (p. 85). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Read
Read
8:32 we rested three days.
The three-day rest after arriving at Jerusalem may correspond to the three-day rest at the end of the exodus journey before crossing the Jordan ().
8:35 Then the exiles who had returned from captivity sacrificed.
The narrative changes here from first person to third person, and the effect of the change is to shift focus from Ezra and the temple personnel to the whole group that returned and their representation of the entire nation of Israel. Most of the numbers of sacrificial animals are a multiple of twelve. Just as the exodus from Egypt was intended to result in worship (e.g., ; ), so the present journey represents travel to the land of promise resulting in worship.
8:36 gave assistance to the people and to the house of God.
The response of the surrounding people is quite different here compared to . Whereas in the earlier narrative the neighboring peoples and officials sought to interfere with work on the temple and discourage the returnees, this time the edict that God prompted from Artaxerxes precludes opposition from even beginning and, in fact, elicits helpful support. The accomplishment of God’s purposes seems to humans to come more smoothly at some times than at others.
8:36 gave assistance to the people and to the house of God. The response of the surrounding people is quite different here compared to . Whereas in the earlier narrative the neighboring peoples and officials sought to interfere with work on the temple and discourage the returnees, this time the edict that God prompted from Artaxerxes precludes opposition from even beginning and, in fact, elicits helpful support. The accomplishment of God’s purposes seems to humans to come more smoothly at some times than at others.
Teaching the Text
Teaching the Text
The pattern that Ezra followed for the return from Babylon was appropriate for his circumstances and time in history. Believers today have patterns to follow that are connected to God’s saving acts in the Old Testament but modified and transformed by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
Nykolaishen, Douglas J.E.. Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther (Teach the Text Commentary Series) (p. 85). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
What we just read and have read up to this point is a display of Servanthood and Worship.
The small amount of remnants that returned with Ezra had a focus and a determination to follow God’s plan for their lives, their people.
Serving the One True God....thus displaying a heart of Worship.
Let’s ask that question again...
"How do you display servanthood as a form of worship in your daily life?"
"How do you display servanthood as a form of worship in your daily life?"
Let’s define Servanthood and Worship:
Servanthood: The act of yielding obedience to another, whether by choice or painful sacrifice, to the needs and wants of another.
Servanthood: The act of yielding obedience to another, whether by choice or painful sacrifice, to the needs and wants of another.
Worship: To honor with extravagant love and extreme submission.
Worship: To honor with extravagant love and extreme submission.
We throw around that word “Worship” thru our Christianese and in my humble opinion, it’s been watered down to mean the time when we get together and sing before the message is given...
Let’s quickly look at what God’s Word says worship is....
Worship is a central aspect of serving God
Worship is a central aspect of serving God
12 And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.”
2 Serve the Lord with gladness;
Come before Him with joyful singing.
Worship entails total obedience, not merely correct religious observances
Worship entails total obedience, not merely correct religious observances
12 “Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
13 and to keep the Lord’s commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?
6 With what shall I come to the Lord
And bow myself before the God on high?
Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings,
With yearling calves?
7 Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams,
In ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?
See also ;
Worship and service to God must be exclusive
Worship and service to God must be exclusive
10 Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’ ”
1 “Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it,
2 so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.
3 “O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
4 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
5 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
6 “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.
7 “You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
8 “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.
9 “You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
10 “Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build,
11 and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied,
12 then watch yourself, that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
13 “You shall fear only the Lord your God; and you shall worship Him and swear by His name.
See also
The Christian’s life as an act of worship
The Christian’s life as an act of worship
Worshipping false gods forbidden
Worshipping false gods forbidden
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
See also ; ;
Warnings against serving false gods
Warnings against serving false gods
19 “But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them,
20 then I will uproot you from My land which I have given you, and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
See also ; ;
Examples of idolatrous service
Examples of idolatrous service
31 It came about, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worshiped him.
See also ; ; ; ; ;
Refusal to serve false gods
Refusal to serve false gods
12 “There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the administration of the province of Babylon, namely Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego. These men, O king, have disregarded you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up.”
See also ; ;
Judgment for serving false gods
Judgment for serving false gods
11 The Lord said to the sons of Israel, “Did I not deliver you from the Egyptians, the Amorites, the sons of Ammon, and the Philistines?
12 “Also when the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you, you cried out to Me, and I delivered you from their hands.
13 “Yet you have forsaken Me and served other gods; therefore I will no longer deliver you.
See also ;
The service of the Levites and the priesthood
The service of the Levites and the priesthood
Consecration of the priesthood
Consecration of the priesthood
1 “Now this is what you shall do to them to consecrate them to minister as priests to Me: take one young bull and two rams without blemish,
See also ; ; ; ;
Service in the Tent of Meeting
Service in the Tent of Meeting
; ; ; ; ; ;
Service in the temple
Service in the temple
2 And he gathered together all the leaders of Israel with the priests and the Levites.
3 The Levites were numbered from thirty years old and upward, and their number by census of men was 38,000.
4 Of these, 24,000 were to oversee the work of the house of the Lord; and 6,000 were officers and judges,
5 and 4,000 were gatekeepers, and 4,000 were praising the Lord with the instruments which David made for giving praise.
See also ; ; ; ; ; musicians and singers; gatekeepers; treasurers; ; ; ; ;
The Christian’s life as an act of worship
The Christian’s life as an act of worship
15 “But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the sons of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer Me the fat and the blood,” declares the Lord God.
See also ; ;
Examples of priestly service
Examples of priestly service
; ;
The true service of Jesus Christ as high priest
The true service of Jesus Christ as high priest
Hebrews sees the OT priesthood and its services as superseded by Jesus Christ.
See also
The Christian’s life as an act of worship
The Christian’s life as an act of worship
1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
1 Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Serve the Lord with gladness;
Come before Him with joyful singing.
3 Know that the Lord Himself is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving
And His courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
5 For the Lord is good;
His lovingkindness is everlasting
And His faithfulness to all generations.
Now how do we tie together Servanthood and Worship?
Now how do we tie together Servanthood and Worship?
See also ;
Turn to
Phil 2:1-18
1 Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion,
2 make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;
4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;
13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing;
15 so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,
16 holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain.
17 But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all.
18 You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.
What speaks to you in these passages that points to Servanthood and Worship?
Now turn to
21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.
22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.
24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,
26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.
28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;
29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,
30 because we are members of His body.
31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
What is God revealing to you about Worship to Him thru service to your spouse?
Let’s transform our hearts towards Worship to Christ by the way we serve those around us...
Let’s transform our hearts towards Worship to Christ by the way we serve those around us...
Is this a valid prayer to pray each morning...
Is this a valid prayer to pray each morning...
“Lord God, how can I worship You today by the way I serve my...”
-Spouse
-Children
-Boss
-Co-Workers
-Family
-Neigbors
-Strangers
30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
Of that
31 “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
"How do you display servanthood as a form of worship in your daily life?"
"How do you display servanthood as a form of worship in your daily life?"
Let’s define Servanthood and Worship:
Servanthood: The act of yielding obedience to another, whether by choice or painful sacrifice, to the needs and wants of another.
Servanthood: The act of yielding obedience to another, whether by choice or painful sacrifice, to the needs and wants of another.
Worship: To honor with extravagant love and extreme submission.
Worship: To honor with extravagant love and extreme submission.
Think on this....
How will you show honor and extravagant love and extreme submission to Christ this week by the way you will yield obedience to another, even if it may be emotionally, physically or possibly spiritually painful to do so, to serve their needs or wants?
How will you show honor and extravagant love and extreme submission to Christ this week by the way you will yield obedience to another, even if it may be emotionally, physically or possibly spiritually painful to do so, to serve their needs or wants?