Today’s passage: Ezra 4:1-6
Helpful thoughts:
- This offer from the adversaries was dishonest.
- The adversaries desired to thwart or hijack their plans to build, not help them.
- Any worship or sacrifices that had been made to God would have been done similarly to the northern kingdom of Israel (A redesigned version of God) and/or within the context of a hybrid Jewish/Gentile worship (2 Kings 17:26-34).
- In this passage we see early animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans (A people who descended from the Jews of the northern ten tribes and the invading Assyrians. They were half-Jewish, half-Gentile and they mixed their religious beliefs and practices).
- Since the Samaritans could not have the temple in Jerusalem, they later built their own at Mt. Gerizim (John 4:19-21).
- The returning Jews were committed to the purity of their worship and were authorized to push forward by the decree of Cyrus. God had provided for them to carry on in the face of local opposition, which they would face for many years and under multiple rulers.
Questions to consider:
- Why was it right for the returning Jews to refuse the offer of these adversaries? How could we answer this question with the first three of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-7)?
- What are some ways that the world’s religious or philosophies can get absorbed into or syncretized with Christianity today? Even the religion of Humanism (The high view of self)?
- Why must we and how can we guard the truth of the gospel and our worship of the Lord in our modern culture? What is the gospel according to God’s Word? How have people altered the message with the insertion of other unbiblical ideas?