Nehemiah 1:1-3:14, 1 Corinthians 7:1-24, Psalms 31:19-24, Proverbs 21:4
Today is the 11th day of August. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and here we are reaching out, twisting the knob, throwing the doorway, the entry open and walking through the threshold of a new week. And we may have plans about this week and kind of know what the schedule is, but we don’t really know what’s going to happen this week. It will all be revealed minute by minute and choice by choice. And one of the wise choices that we make each and every day is to take the next step forward in the Scriptures, allowing them to be a voice in our lives as we face the choices that we need to make on any given day or in any given week. And, so, we got a brand-new week. We will read from the Good News Translation this week. And we concluded the book of Ezra yesterday, which means we’ll be beginning a new book as we begin this new week and this book is called Nehemiah.
Introduction to the book of Nehemiah”
Nehemiah is part of a group of books known as the books of history in the Bible and we won’t be to lost. Nehemiah picks up pretty much where Ezra leaves off. In Christian tradition Ezra is considered at least one of the authors of Nehemiah because Ezra and Nehemiah at one time in biblical history were a single manuscript. So, here’s pretty much what we know. Nehemiah was a Jewish exile. He had been exiled and was under the rule of the Persian kings and he’d followed the story of how God gave favor to this remnant of people, these exiles in allowing the first Jewish people to return to their homeland and rebuild the temple. And he would’ve been able to follow the story closely because he was a direct servant to the Persian king. What got Nehemiah’s attention, what engaged his heart, and actually engaged his heart to the point that he interceded for months about this, was this image that he had of God’s temple, which obviously, the temple was the symbol, like the symbol of the Jewish people and the place where God met with mankind. So, he had this image of this of this temple being rebuilt but sitting there completely undefended. And, so, a passion began to build in Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and this went on until he couldn’t hold it inside anymore and had to talk to the King. And just having this desire and then having the guts to talk to the King, that’s not the whole story. He faced all kinds of opposition. But we’ll watch as we see the story unfold, that even though he faced all kinds of opposition he persevered through all of it. He was resolute. He didn’t turn to the left or the right, he didn’t lose sight of who he was depending on. And these are all things that all of us have to learn. This is all part of our faith journey and all part of the maturing process in the faith. And, so, as we’ll see, the wall was rebuilt in record time, and Nehemiah returned to Persia to report to the King and just resume his role, but later he was given permission to go back to Jerusalem again and when he got there what he found very much troubled him, similar to Ezra. The wall they built was strong, the people were not. The people were weak. And, so, Nehemiah stepped into that breach and helped restore Israel to its glory before the Lord. There is so much for us in this book. And, so, we begin, Nehemiah chapter 1 verse 1 through 3 verse 14.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for this brand-new week that we are entering to be counseled by Your word and to be in fellowship with one another as we continue this journey through the Scriptures this year. We invite Your Holy Spirit into this week, into every decision that we need to make, whether it’s something that we know about or something that will just home as a surprise. We’re faced with decisions and choices things to talk about every single day and we need the counsel of Your Holy Spirit so that in all things we might reveal Your kingdom. Come Holy Spirit we ask. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.