Time was running short for special agent Doug Carlin in the film Déjà Vu. Whoever was responsible for the devastating explosion might strike again. So to help identify the criminal, Carlin tapped into top-secret but mind-boggling technology that he hoped would send him back in time to prevent the tragic explosion from ever having happened. But on asking the experts to explain how it worked, he received an avalanche of scientific jargon.
“I said, explain it to me,” he protested. “Not talk science.”
I was so challenged by that line that I stuck it in my Bible for those times when I needed to explain God’s Word, as had happened back in Nehemiah’s day. After years in exile, the Israelites were eager to hear Scripture (Nehemiah 8:1), and for many hours “all the people listened attentively” (vv. 3–4). But evidently, they also needed someone to explain it, so the priests “[made] it clear” by translating obscure words into modern-day language and pausing and “[giving] the meaning so that the people understood what was being read”. Only then could they apply it to their lives.
Our family, friends, colleagues and social-media contacts may have read or heard quotes from Scripture that they don’t fully understand. For many, God’s potentially life-giving Word is as perplexing as high-brow science. As we explain it with God’s help, however, His Word will be sown in their hearts where it can produce kingdom fruit.
By Anne Le Tissier
REFLECT & PRAY
What opportunities do you have to unpack the meaning of Scripture with others? How are you living out God’s Word so that others can understand its meaning?
Thank You, Father, for Your precious Word that comforts, guides and transforms. Please show me how I can help others to benefit from it too.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
The Jewish exiles returned from Babylonian captivity in three different groups. Zerubbabel (ca. 538 BC) and Ezra (ca. 458 BC) led the first two returns. Nehemiah (ca. 444 BC) led the third return, with the sole purpose of repairing the broken walls of Jerusalem, providing much needed protection for the city (Nehemiah 1–2). This repair project was met with strong and hostile opposition (chs. 4–5 ). As the project neared its completion, Nehemiah’s enemies tried to distract and delay him from his task by inviting him to go to Ono for “peace talks.” To get to Ono, an obscure little village near the border of Samaria, Nehemiah would have to take a long, twenty-five-mile, fruitless journey through some very deserted and dangerous terrain. Nehemiah knew that his enemies “were scheming to harm [him]” (6:1–4). Despite the opposition, obstacles, and discouragements, however, the wall project was completed in record time—fifty-two days (v. 15).
K. T. Sim
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