Fasting at Hope Church
Image via Wikipedia “ Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God , to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods” (v. 21). - Ezra 8:21–23 Scripture often links the spiritual discipline of prayer to fasting ( Dan. 9:3 ; Luke 2:37 ). Since we just finished a brief look at old covenant prayer and its new covenant fulfillment, it is now proper to look at the spiritual discipline of fasting. Our passage today records a fast Ezra the scribe once mandated. The setting is the Persian Empire , which in Ezra’s day had recently overthrown Babylon , the kingdom that destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC and took captive the people of God ( 2 Kings 25). As it did with other people groups, Persia allowed the Israelites to go back to their homeland, and Ezra went back to enact various religious reforms ( Ezra 7:1–8:20 ). Traveling on the roads was not very safe back then. Thie...