Passage Read: Ezra 6-9
Meditation Verses: 9:11-12
Thought
Ezra summarizes the command of God with regard to unbelievers well here. They were not to intermarry with them, and they were not to make peace with them. Ezra describes that latter part as making a treaty of friendship. The Law didn't use those words, but that's what God meant. In fact, they were to destroy all the Canaanites. But Israel is not in charge of their own land at this time, though the emperor had given Ezra instruction to teach all the peoples of the region the Laws of God, not just the Jews! So Ezra interprets God's original command to mean no treaties of friendship with godless peoples. That's how they need to apply God's original command in their current context. And that's helpful to understand how we're supposed to treat others who refuse to obey the Lord. We should still exercise authority over our own marriages and those of our children so we don't intermarry with unbelievers, but we also need to be careful not to make treaties of friendship with unbelievers. Bringing it even more forward, Paul tells us not to bind ourselves together with unbelievers in any way.
Application
In Christ, we have the same command that Ezra received from Artaxerxes, to teach all people everywhere the commands and ways of the Lord. We have no power to enforce the obedience of all people, like Ezra appears to have had. Ezra seems to have exercised his authority only among the Jews, and that is something the church can do today, in disciplining its own members. Intermarrying with unbelievers should be off limits to Christians, but also making friends of unbelievers, especially in any kind of binding partnership. We need to be friendly in order to bring the Gospel, but those who refuse and reject it, we need to keep a relational distance from. Those who are willing to keep hearing and learning about Jesus are welcome, but still we need to remain guarded until they accept Him as Lord and Savior. They are not friends until they believe in Jesus.