It is natural to think this…: if we busy ourselves studying God's Word, we are not going to be very competent in anything else. But that is not the case either with Ezra or with anyone who hungers and thirsts to study God's Word rightly. Because if we study God's Word rightly it means this: we are studying this Word because we have been captivated by the God of this Word. I love thy law, says the Psalmist, because it is thy law through which I come to know You. And as we hunger and thirst to know God as he has revealed himself in his Word, just as we take seriously the great commandment to love God entirely, we find ourselves increasingly loving others, desiring to do it, and having a growing capability to love our neighbour. Even in a way that they do not understand it, but it is love. Oh it is that those who most hunger and thirst to know God, those who are most heavenly-minded, grow and become of most earthly good.1
William Harrell
10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.