We had an hour and a half online session yesterday listening to and discussing chapter 1 of Sonship by Jack Miller. Just read a review of it by Van Dixhoorn concerning it from WTJ vol.61-2. I’m a little biased since Van Dixhoorn was my professor last semester.

Anyways, we looked at sin, grace, Christ, adoption, the Gospel… The audio was a bit dated but the message was received. I think after listening to the Gospel Coalition, I was spoiled by some really good teaching. But one thing that this has is community. We were able to connect with different people and have a little bit of discussion and prayer. This is different from individual learning and studying. As we’ve been learning, change happens in a community. We were blessed last night with a community of believers that was willing to share.

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We had our family reading last night as well. We looked at Ezra chapter 7. In it we see that Ezra came from a long line. He was descended from a line that was recorded by the author. He was also highly respected by the King as one who knew the Law of the Lord. Ezra spent his life studying and teaching and preaching. This is one man who was purpose driven. He was goal driven. And had a singular vision… to glorify God.

In the letter from Artaxerxes, Ezra was claimed to possess the knowledge of God, he was claimed to know the law of God so well that he was able to command his fellow Israelites in the ways of the Lord.

That was my prayer last night. That we as a family would know God so well that we can not only live well, but also be a witness of our Great God and make him known to others.

Praise be to the LORD, the God of our fathers, who has put it into the king’s heart to bring honor to the house of the LORD in Jerusalem in this way and who has extended his good favor to me before the king and his advisers and all the king’s powerful officials. Because the hand of the LORD my God was on me, I took courage and gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me. – Ezra 7:27-28