The Wall and the Word: Lessons from the Book of Nehemiah - Brossura

Luckraft, Paul

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1915046548 ISBN 13: 9781915046543

Casa editrice: Malcolm Down Publishing Limited, 2023

Riassunto

Nehemiah is best known for its account of the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem by the Israelites on returning from exile. But there is much more to the book than this. Equally important was the need to rebuild the people as God’s community. How could they be reformed to live according to his will? For this they needed to rediscover what God had said in the Book of the Law. The full story of Nehemiah features both the wall and the Word. Here we examine each chapter to draw out the main lessons. We also focus on three key topics. Nehemiah faced a lot of opposition from many enemies. Why was this, and what can we learn from his experiences? What exactly was this ‘Book of the Law’ and is this relevant to us now? Why was rediscovering the Feast of Tabernacles so important for them, and what can this mean for us? Nehemiah is a largely forgotten book, but an essential part of our ‘God-breathed’ scripture. It’s time to let it breathe again as we seek to rebuild ourselves as a community of believers and strengthen our own lives in his service.

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Informazioni sull?autore

Paul Luckraft=============

Paul Luckraft is an experienced Bible teacher, fully involved in his local evangelical church in Buckinghamshire. Since retiring as a secondary school teacher, Paul has developed a wider ministry, including teaching at conferences and small gatherings as well as online. He holds a first class degree in Theology, and also plays the piano and writes music in his spare time. This is Paul’s first book. He can be contacted via his website, www.orchardseeds.com.

Estratto. © Ristampato con autorizzazione. Tutti i diritti riservati.

This book has emerged from what I call ‘Conversations with my Bible’, time spent talking through with God what he is saying to us in a particular portion of his Word. The result is not a traditional commentary, though in Part One we do cover the text of Nehemiah in some detail and the approach is approximately chapter by chapter. Nor has the aim been to provide a series of academic studies, though we have not shied away from engaging with some of the deeper issues which come from reading Nehemiah. There were also three topics in particular which seemed to deserve further attention. Firstly, Nehemiah faced a lot of opposition from many enemies. Why was this, and what could we learn from his experiences? Then there was the Book of the Law, which features strongly in the second half of Nehemiah. What exactly was this? Does this have any meaning for us today? Finally, there is a mention of the Feast of Tabernacles as a notable part of their restoration as a community. Perhaps some further explanation of this feast and its significance would be useful. It was felt that these topics would benefit from extra teaching, but in order not to interrupt the flow of the narrative in Nehemiah, these topics were picked up after the main series of talks on Nehemiah and each one was put into a separate, shorter series of its own. Here, in this book, these form Part Two. I mentioned earlier about having ‘conversations with my Bible’, a term I prefer to that of ‘Bible study’, for two reasons. Firstly, the Bible is not primarily a book to be studied, though for a variety of reasons it is studied, and often to good effect. Study may be part of how we tackle the biblical text but essentially the Bible is different from other books and should be approached accordingly. It is a book to engage in conversation with, for it speaks to us from the one who gave it to us, a God who speaks. Secondly, the written content has gone through a process of several conversations with others whom I am privileged to teach and share the scriptures with. Out of our conversations together comes a greater sense of conversation with the Bible itself. In the end, my conversations with my Bible may not be exactly the same as your conversations with your Bible. However, it is hoped that by ‘listening in’, you will be stimulated to do likewise, not just in Nehemiah but in the Bible generally. We are all to be encouraged to engage with the Bible as a living text, the Word of the living God who desires and delights to talk to us in this way. Listening as we read is an important part of getting the message that scripture has for us. Christians think of the Bible as inspired, often quoting Paul’s words to Timothy that ‘All Scripture is God-breathed’ (2 Tim. 3:16). Let’s think about that a little more at this point. It is correctly said that for Paul the only scriptures would be what we call the Old Testament (including of course Nehemiah) as the New Testament was not yet written or regarded as ‘scripture’. There is nothing ‘old’ or out of date when it comes to the Bible being inspired. The actual Greek word which Paul uses is ‘theopneustos’, which is made up of ‘theo’ (God) and ‘pneustos’, which relates to ‘pneuma’ meaning spirit, breath or wind. The whole word could be translated as ‘God-blown’ but perhaps ‘God-breathed’ is better! But what does it mean to say the scriptures are ‘God-breathed’? It is a difficult word to define precisely. For a start, it is only found in this one verse in 2 Timothy, nowhere else in the New Testament, in fact nowhere else in the Greek language until after Paul’s time. So did he invent it? Perhaps. Interestingly, there are several examples (some say about nineteen in all) of the church fathers in the first 400 years using the word ‘theopneustos’ to describe their own writings or sermons. This was not out of any sense of self-importance or claims of divinity, rather that they felt something special had happened as they wrote or spoke. In that sense the word gained a more general use, just as we might also use it of ourselves regarding something we have said or written or taken part in. We were inspired! So it doesn’t have to be used exclusively of God or the scripture, and, as we shall see, it can refer to our reading of scripture as much as to the writing of it. But what does it mean to say scripture is God-breathed? It seems to be a metaphor in some way, what we call an anthropomorphism, as God doesn’t literally ‘breathe’. Perhaps Paul is thinking of Genesis 2:7 where God breathes into the dust-made body of Adam and animates him, causes him to be a living being, alive in a new way. So what actually happened to those who wrote scripture, in particular during the time in which they were writing what is now in our Bible? Peter, in his second letter, says how prophets spoke from God as they were carried along (or moved) by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:20-21), which could also be deduced from the word ‘theopneustos’. But notice that in 2 Timothy Paul does not say the writers were ‘God-breathed’ rather that the scriptures (what they wrote) are God-breathed. All scripture is God-breathed. And this is where we come in. The authors were no doubt ‘inspired’ or ‘moved by the Spirit’ as they wrote, but God also breathed on the scriptures at that time in such a way that the words themselves could come to life (again) when read later (by you!). God continues to breathe upon his Word. It was not a one-off capture of a piece of inspired brilliance or a heightened experience in the past (though it may have involved that also), rather it is the Word itself which is living and active, and which can come alive in the moment of being read. What God originally breathed in, is now breathed out. The main point is not to read ‘God-breathed’ as ‘God-dictated’. Inspiration is not the same as dictation, like an automatic piece of writing. C.S. Lewis has commented that the writing of the Bible was ruled over by a divine presence which inspired without dictating; it was God-directed rather than God-recited. So the text of scripture is God-breathed in two ways, in and out. Both writer and reader experience its inspiration, though not necessarily to the same degree or in the same way. There remains something of a mystery to all this. However, what we are saying in all this is that scripture isn’t just inspired – it is inspiring, even inspirational. And it is this quality which leads to illumination, and which allows confusion to give way to clarity, so that truth may emerge. Is this your experience of reading scripture? It can be. Maybe not all the time. I don’t think that happens to anyone, but we can always expect this. I hope this is a useful preliminary explanation of a key word and has led to a better understanding of an important concept that isn’t always properly appreciated. We are now ready to go through the book of Nehemiah. So let’s begin, starting with some basic facts about the book: what it is like and what it contains.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Malcolm Down Publishing Limited
• Data di pubblicazione: 2023
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1915046548
• ISBN 13: 9781915046543
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 280
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: Buchpark GmbH; gpsr@buchpark.de; ; Krügerweg 1; Trebbin; Brandenburg; 14959; Germania