"You Have Nothing in Common with Us" (9/19)

Thought from today’s Bible reading from Ezra 4-6; Psalm 137.

When the people returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, they received an offer of assistance from an unexpected source – the enemies of Judah and Benjamin.

Now when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the Lord God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ households, and said to them, ‘Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God; and we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here.’ But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of fathers’ households of Israel said to them, ‘You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves will together build to the Lord God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us’” (Ezra 4:1-3).

Were the leaders of the people justified in rejecting this help? After all, these “enemies” did believe in God and offered sacrifices to Him. But just because they believed in the Lord and offered some kind of sacrifices, that did not make them brethren.

This principle can be carried over to our service to God under the law of Christ. We are not to join into fellowship and work with just anyone (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:14; Ephesians 5:11; 2 John 10-11). Just because one believes in God, that does not make him a brother. Just because one worships God in some way, that does not make him a brother, either. Notice what Paul wrote:

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26-28).

We are “one in Christ” through faithful obedience (namely baptism). We can join together and work with other baptized believers – who are also continuing to faithfully obey the Lord’s instructions (2 Thessalonians 3:6) – in doing those things God has instructed us to do. We are not permitted to ignore the bounds that God has placed upon our fellowship, no matter how great or important the work in which we are engaged may be.

Tomorrow’s reading: Haggai 1-2

[I’m using the Chronological reading plan on the Bible Gateway website if you’d like to follow along, too.]


Daily Notes & Observations contains all 365 articles from this series and is available in paperback from Gospel Armory.


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