Ezra and Nehemiah Bible lesson

This week our Sunday School lesson has been Ezra and Nehemiah.  I always pair those two in my mind, even though they are two separate books, but they take place at mostly the same time.

 In terms of where this happens chronologically in the Bible, it’s more or less after Daniel.

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Lessons from Ezra

Ezra and Nehemiah have very similar themes, God is supreme over all, even foreign kings; stand strong in your faith despite the trials, and follow hard after God.

But Ezra is different from Nehemiah.  If you’re looking at the prophet/priest/king split up of ministry, he is quite clearly the prophet or priest.  Ezra sees what is wrong and guides the people to what is right.  While slogging through all of the names in Ezra it’s a good reminder to see that Ezra kept on going and pointed everyone back to God through every single problem.

Lessons from Nehemiah

I like Nehemiah a lot.  He became one of my favorites, even if there’s 4 chapters of names, a few yeas ago.  Nehemiah saw a problem, Jerusalem couldn’t defend itself, and God had put Nehemiah in the right place to solve the problem.  Nehemiah talked to the king and convinced him to fund the rebuilding of Jerusalem.  He is quite clearly a king in the prophet/priest/king split up, planning and solving problems quickly and efficiently.

Many people came up against Nehemiah to stop their work, just as with Ezra, but Nehemiah organized the men to build the walls.  Each person was responsible for a small part, and together they rebuilt the walls in 52 days.  That’s a minor miracle there.  They built with a sword in one hand and a shovel in the other.

How do you work to defend what you believe in?  Back in the 1990s a movement arose called Promise-Keepers, these were men who said they would keep their promise and would “stand in the gap” to protect their marriage.  I think that’s quite an amazing sentiment, and ever since hearing the phrase “Standing in the gap” I’ve been amused by it.

 Ezra and Nehemiah activities

This week has been a little odd, so we didn’t get quite as much done as I’d wanted, and the pictures from this post are actually from last Christmas (we talk about Ezra as part of our Advent activities).

My kids’ all-time favorite Ezra activities are rebuilding the wall and defending it.  I give them a small section of the room (about 3 feet long) and have them try to build a wall 3 cans high, or blocks, your building item of choice.  Meanwhile the other team (Jeff and I, or whoever else is being drafted for the opposing team) tries to steal the wall.  The kids defend with pillows and it’s a big messy fun game.  I haven’t quite figured out how to scale this up to a Sunday School class, it’d be too violent and dangerous right now.

For Ezra, we built ourselves a tabernacle out of chairs and blankets.  In the book it says the people celebrated the feast of Tabernacles together, so what better way than to build our own giant tent?  This particular time we did not build a model of the temple, but you could do that also.

Get your own Ezra and Nehemiah lesson here.

Ezra and Nehemiah resources

• What’s in the Bible? Volume 7 – Exile and Return
• Nehemiah video (from What’s in the Bible, seriously BUY these DVDs)
• Ezra Unit Study

Up next: Esther