Well, let's start off with just verse one for now.

This is a long chapter, and we're just going to do one verse at a time.

No, we're not.

Now, these are the people of the province who came back from the captivity of those who had been carried away,

whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried away to Babylon,

and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, everyone, to his own city.

All right, I just wanted to take verse one by itself initially for a reason,

and that reason is that actually all the way from verse one through to verse 35, we have listed first,

and this is interesting, the names of all the families, those who

returned by their families to Jerusalem. Then from verse 36 through verse 39, we have the list

of the priests. And then in verse 41, we have the worship of the priests and then in verse 41 we have the worship team the singers and then in

verse 42 we have what are known as the nathaneme not to be confused with the nephalim in genesis chapter 6

we'll look more into that here when we get to that part of the chapter. Now,

why do I want to point this out? Because in this outline, we have what I think is an important

principle in that it speaks to the paramount importance of the family.

It's for this reason I think that we have listed first and really predominantly the better part of the chapter, the mention of first, not the priests, the families.

Why? Because of the importance of the family. I would suggest that the family

is so important it actually becomes a litmus test as it were when it comes to the qualifications

of those who serve in positions of leadership, and especially

as it relates to the qualifications of an elder who were told must have their house in order

if they are to serve in leadership. This is in Titus, the first chapter,

verses 6 through 9, says, an elder must be blameless, not sinless, blameless, and there's a difference,

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