Background to Nehemiah

I mentioned earlier in a post here of Rev David Pawson's "Unlocking the Bible" as a great tool to help you in your Bible reading. You can make your reading and journalling of Nehemiah with a lot more understanding and engagement if you read his chapter on Ezra and Nehemiah, page 682. It is very easy reading and provides a wonderful historical background to this book. Did you know there were two exiles, three deportations and three returns? Nehemiah led the third return. His chief concern was to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Who lead the first and second return? Go find out! They were all mentioned in the book of Nehemiah.

In case you have not bought Pawson's book, you can get it from our bookshop in church. I assure you this will be one of your best investments for your spiritual growth.

A great book to help you in understanding the Bible.

This is a great book to help you understand the Bible better when you read it. Written by one of my favourite author and preacher, David Pawson, this is a really thick book covering Genesis to Revelation, costing about RM60 when I bought it. It is worth every sen! It is a compendium of eight separate volumes in the "Unlocking the Bible" series. Very very readable as most of it is a transcription of his teaching sermons. For e.g., before you embark on the Gospel of Matthew per your Bible Reading Plan for your journalling, read the chapter on Matthew in this book. It will set the context for a better understanding of the passages that you will be reading and journalling.

Unlocking the Bible opens up the word of God in a fresh and powerful way. Avoiding the small detail of verse by verse studies, it sets out the epic story of God and his people in Israel. The culture, historical background and people are introduced and the teaching applied to the modern world. Eight volumes have been brought into one compact and easy to use guide to cover both the Old and the New testaments in one massive omnibus edition. (Amazon Website)

Each chapter gives you a great overview of intention and meaning of a whole bible book. Often when we read, we take short passages, rather than reading a few chapters to understand the context of the passage, focussing on the trees and missing the forest. This chapters will give you the context to bring out the best in your reading.

I have given this as a book gift to all PJ North 1 Cell leaders in 2007. Time to take this out if you have conveniently left it into your bookshelf. :) 

I have asked Burning Bush to stock this book. Please check with Chee Beng.