🕊️ The Way | Christian Leadership & Theology
Scripture Focus: Ezra 7:6–10; Nehemiah 8:1–9
The exile was over, but the wounds of exile were not. Jerusalem’s walls had been rebuilt, the temple stood again, yet something was missing. The people had structure without spirit, ceremony without conviction. They had returned to their land, but not fully to their Lord.
That’s when God raised up Ezra—a priest, a scholar, and a reformer whose tools were not hammers or swords, but scrolls and Scripture.
Ezra lived during the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, around 458 B.C. He was part of the second wave of exiles returning to Judah, about 80 years after Zerubbabel’s rebuilding of the temple. Ezra was different from the heroes of old. He didn’t lead armies or call down fire; he opened the Book of the Law and called people back to faith.
