Back in 1995, at the age of 34, my wife and I took the step to serve in a developing nation.

My wife was teaching accountancy at a local university and I was finishing up my bond with the Ministry of Health. My parents and my in-laws were not Christians then. 

Our church elders met my parents and my in-laws over a fairly formal dinner. They explained that the church would like to seek their blessings and also to thank them (in advance) for supporting the work that we were going overseas to do.  

The discussion was held in two languages (with dialects occasionally thrown in) as the church elders were English-speaking and our parents spoke in Teochew, Cantonese and Mandarin.

One of the parents asked: “So will they have to raise funds and ask for support from other people?” (The unsaid blunt meaning was: Do they have to beg?)

In a moment of inspiration, one of the church elders replied: “Our church will support them fully. We will even put in their CPF.”

Ah – CPF!* Our parents understood that English acronym. 

They were not driven by material wealth or greed but were concerned about our well-being even though both of us were in our 30s and had already chalked up some years of work life.

In their eyes, we were still their children.

Ezra’s call

The elders and my parents spoke different languages but they landed happily on a common understanding about God’s call and purpose.

There is a parallel in the book of Ezra.

Ezra tells us about the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. As in the book of Daniel, Ezra is also written in two languages – mainly Hebrew and some parts in Aramaic, the latter being the common language of the ruling Persian empire.

The re-building of the Jerusalem temple was a major undertaking that took many years and involved many people. Yet in all these happenings, we do not read of any direct verse or utterance that called Ezra to embark on this task.

So how did God call Ezra and the people? How did Ezra know that God was calling him?

It started with a decree from the foreign king: “In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.” (Ezra 1:1-2)

Two languages, one God

So what constitutes a call?

Many Christians have asked themselves: “Has God called me to serve overseas?”  

Sometimes, we long to hear the “spiritual” language of God’s call but miss the opportunity that a “secular” employment offers or a vocational posting that is presented to us.  

Ezra was prepared to serve in a distant land because of a decree that the secular authority gave. To carry out the task, Ezra used letters in Aramaic as this would strengthen his cause when dealing with Persian officials.

However some native Hebrew speakers may not have given due respect to the foreign mandate, even if it was a mandate that came with a start-up fund of gold and silver basins from the king’s treasurer. (Ezra 1:8-11) 

Some welcomed and rejoiced in the re-building effort, but there were also divisions, discouragement and disputes. (Ezra 4:4) Ezra toggled between two languages but we know that he served the one LORD.

Discerning the invitation

The preceding verses of  Ezra chapter 7 were written in Aramaic, but Ezra switched back to Hebrew for the concluding portion: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counsellors, and before all the king’s mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of the Lord my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me. (Ezra 7:27-28 ESV)

Blessed be the LORD indeed and may we discern well to know when an employer’s mandate for company expansion, or when vocational opportunities are given, that these could actually be the Lord’s invitation to us to serve Him in different regions, diverse communities and vocations.

*CPF is an acronym for Singapore’s Central Provident Fund, a mandatory social security savings scheme funded by contributions from employers and employees. The CPF is a key pillar of Singapore’s social security system, and serves to meet retirement, housing and healthcare needs.

This is the second of Dr Tan’s devotions in his series on The Language of Hearts and Minds. Read the first devotion here. Watch this space for the final devotion on this series in upcoming weeks.

Note from the author: “Two portions of Ezra are written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew (4:8-6:18; 7:12-26), and this seems to be caused by the weaving of documents into the book. The Aramaic begins in Ezra 4:8 with a letter written to King Artaxerxes. Since Aramaic was the language of diplomacy in the Persian empire, the letter would have been written in Aramaic. Ezra is simply presenting the original document. Similarly, Ezra 7:12-26 records a decree of Artaxerxes which would have originally been given in Aramaic. 

However, not all of the verses in Aramaic are reproductions of diplomatic correspondence or decrees of Persian kings. Some of the narrative is also given in Aramaic. Some have theorised that Ezra continued to write in Aramaic after inserting the Aramaic letters to demonstrate that he understood the language and was accurately interpreting the correspondence. He reverts to Hebrew in 6:19 due to the religious nature of that section (Snell 1980: 32-51; Howard 1993: 292).

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