A Lamp for Today
Light from the Readable Books 31: 1 Esdras, the Domestic, and the Divine
The relatively unknown book of 1 Esdras (1 Ezra in the Orthodox Study Bible) commends itself to us through the fathers’ attention to its central episode, 1 Esdras 3:1-5:6 (OSB 1 Ezra). In reading the young man Zerubbabel’s discourse concerning the power of women and the victory of truth, we are helped by referring to 1 Corinthians 13, Proverbs 31, Psalm 119 [118 LXX]:160, Matthew 19:5, and Matthew 24:3. God uses the domestic and ordinary things of this world to raise us up to the truths and graces that are divine.
Friday, October 17, 2025
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About
Join Edith Humphrey in reading Old Testament passages designed to bring to life the weekly Gospel and/or Epistle reading for the Divine Liturgy. The apostle Peter, speaking of these books, called them a “lamp,” confirmed in Christ, which we must heed until the very return of our Lord (2 Peter 1:19). Discover how the apostles and the New Testament writers followed the pattern of Jesus in their understanding of the “Holy Scriptures” of the early Church—the Law, the Prophets and the Writings.  See what happens as we “read backwards” from the New Testament to the Old, just as the evangelists do: here is a quest to see the continuity between the testaments that will both encourage and challenge. As Jesus opened the Old Testament to the two on Emmaus, their “hearts burned within them:” can we afford to ignore words that so powerfully witness to our Lord Christ, through which the Holy Spirit still speaks today?