The audio has an issue a little bit into it. It picks up a buz after a little while. Not sure what it is. Sorry.

Nehemiah 1 (audio Link for Download)

This week we are starting a new series. We will be studying the book of Nehemiah. I was originally just going to do a few weeks in it, but as I got closer, I saw there was a lot more in here that we can address. I don’t want to rush through it, so we will go through the majority of the book in a similar fashion to the way we did Ruth. We will read large chunks of the book and discuss themes and elements of the book. We wont go through it line by line like James or Philippians because it is a historical account as opposed to an instructional letter. It is better to pull back and read more to get a feel for what is going on. While it is a historical account and therefore primarily descriptive, there are many applications that we can make to our lives from this narrative.

We will start out with a little background on the book. This book was written by the man whom it is named for. The events that occur in the book happened over about a 13 year span from 445-432 BC. Leading up to this time, there are a couple dates to make note of. Almost 100 years earlier Cyrus the king of Persia Captured Babylon who had only 40 years or so before destroyed Jerusalem. Because of all this war, God’s people had been displaced. Taken as captives and slaves by their conquerors, or cast into exile all over the place. When Cyrus took over he made a proclamation allowing the Jewish exiles to return to their homeland. Several waves of exiles returned to Jerusalem. Some tried to rebuild the temple and were stopped, then allowed to start, then stopped again.

When we meet Nehemiah he is one of the exiles that has not returned. He is in a pretty good setup as a cupbearer to the king of persia. He gets to eat whatever the king eats, and drink whatever the king drinks.

Nehemiah has:

A heart of compassion…leads to…

a heart of prayer…based in

Knowledge of the Word of God