Road Trippin With Rachael

I really had to take some time to think my way through this post.

I think we have all realized that sin does not only affect the person who is committing the sin, but that there are always ripple effects that affect others. We see this all the time. Sin is never limited to a singular person – there will always be others harmed by someone else’s actions. Honestly, when I was reading through this chapter, I kept thinking about all the sexual abuse allegations that have come to light in the last five years. Sins that people thought would remain in the dark have been brought forward, and now a spotlight is being shined on the issues around sexual abuse within churches. It’s painful to watch, and yet like poison being drained from a wound you also know that this is the best thing that can happen because this is how we get better.

Ezra 10 is going to be one of those chapters. It is going to be painful to read, and the actions that are taken feel like they are extreme, but at the same time you know that sometimes extreme measures is what it takes to make the wound better, so it can heal and be healthy.

Before we get to far into this point, I want to remind everyone that the mandate to not marry foreign people was not because of racism – this was not an ethnic issue. It was a spiritual issue. The people who were in the land of Canaan worshiped different Gods, and when you have people who have fundamentally different core beliefs they are not in unity – someone will have to give to the other in the home. Realistically, if both parties in a marriage aren’t in agreement, it causes upheaval with any children getting the short end of the stick. As we read in Nehemiah, the intermarriages were resulting in children loosing their history, their language, and not even learning of their faith heritage. It was the little points of giving in to have a “happy wife, happy life” that was ultimately led to the Israelites being exiled, and now they were repeating those mistakes.

As we go through Ezra 10, we are going to look at the painful realities of sin.

Sin Isn’t Done Alone

Although we all like to think of ourselves as being fully autonomous, in reality we are all highly dependent on others. We depend on supermarkets &/or farmers to provide foods for us, people to be produce goods, trades to provide services, and consumers to purchase the goods &/or services that are provided. Culture and society dictate what are acceptable actions and what societal norms are, while religious institutions establish morals and values, and even how they are practiced within culture. Unfortunately, the same can be said of sin.

Even though each person if fully responsible for their own actions, more often than not society will determine what is “small” sin verses a “big” sin. In the United States shoplifting is a crime, however the consequences are based off the value of what is being stolen; meanwhile is some areas outside of the US, shoplifting anything requires the payment of your hand (Disney’s Aladdin gives us a prime example of this). Either way, something is being stolen. Exodus 20:15 is pretty straightforward on this. In both cases, culture dictated how a crime was handled, and whether it is something deserves a consequence.

When we look to Ezra 10, we see the culmination of chapter 9. Ezra and his company have confessed their own sins, and they did some soul searching before the begin to address the sins the people already in Israel have been committing – taking a very Matthew 7:5-8 approach to address these sin issues. What we see by verse 1 is that the sin of taking foreign spouses was not a secret, nor was it a few people on the fringes of Hebrew society where no one really noticed this was taking place.  “An extremely large assembly of Israelite men, women, and children gathered around him. The people also wept bitterly” (Ezra 10:1b) because they had been passive in this sin. Instead of addressing the issue and nipping this particular sin in the bud, they allowed it to occur – not once, but multiple times – thereby passively supporting it. Later is scripture, Paul will call out the Corinthian church for passively allowing a member of the congregation to commit what could only be described as a heinous sin (I Corinthians 5:1-2). Although the purpose of this post is not to address issues surrounding church discipline – it is worth mentioning that there is an appropriate time for it to be implemented, and that is when an individual is actively participating in sin that harms the witness and body of Christ; not because they hold a different opinion on a tertiary issue. Both this issues of Ezra 10 and I Corinthians should have been addressed because they are both sin that harms the body. And like the Corinthian church, it took someone new, who hadn’t become numb to the sin happening around them to be a catalyst for change.

Sometimes You’ve Gotta Go Big

I believe that there is often this misconception that when a church has a discussion over discipline that they want to completely get rid of someone from the church – they don’t want them to serve or to attend. That is not the purpose of discipline; its purpose is to restore someone who have been in grievous sin, and it begins with toing to the brother or sister in Christ who is committing the sin. Matthew 18:15-20 gives a breakdown of the order that healthy confrontation needs to happen. When we are in Ezra, we see this happening on a grand scale. Since this was a sin that was collectively being committed, the most appropriate thing was for it to be collectively addressed. As with the vast majority of scripture, there is always something to be learned.

1. Your level of influence holds you to a higher standard (Ezra 10:18). Not only were there several Israelite men who had married foreign wives, but some of those men were also priests – including a son of the High Priest. We’re all aware that there are grassroots movements that gradually gain traction over the course of decades, and it is really only when someone of influence becomes involved that something will take off. Case in point, we have an entire job category for people who are known as “influencers.”
2. There are always consequences to sin, and sometimes it is long standing (Ezra10:40). Since the sin we’ve been discussing in Ezra 9 & 10 took place over the course of many years, and involved couples, there were several families that had children. Untangling the mess that had been created didn’t only affect the Israelite man who intentionally acted in disobedience, but it affected the woman he married, and if they had any children together. Unfortunately, scripture doesn’t ever go into detail about how this was to be handled, other than divorce and how to provide for the woman (Deuteronomy 24:1-4; Exodus 21)
3. There is always going to be someone who opposes correction (Ezra 10:15). On one level I get it – no one likes to be confronted for the decisions that we make. The other level is that we need to be open to correction. We need to be able to see how our sin is affecting not only ourselves but those who are around us.

Don’t be confused – the situation Ezra finds himself addressing would be every pastor’s worst nightmare. But, there were people there who whose hearts were softened, who were willing to accept the correction being offered, and who repented. It may have been a pastor’s worst nightmare, but Ezra also saw a group of people who were willing to repent.

Thank You!

Thank you for taking time to go through the book of Ezra with me! I’ve loved digging deeper with you and exploring what God has for us. We won’t be doing any more Bible studies until we get closer to Christmas. At that time, we will be doing Vlogmas over on my YouTube channel, Road Trippin With Rachael. You can expect to see posts every Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday going up to Christmas starting with Advent.

So for the next several weeks, I’ll be discussing some pet topics of things I’m interested in. Some of these topics are going to include: choosing your Bible, Deciding on a Bible study, how do I get volunteers, and how can you can help your students plan for college.