So, At the most basic level the book of Nehemiah is a story about rebuilding the ancient

ancestral capital city of the Jewish people, Jerusalem, and specifically it's about rebuilding the walls.

But as you and I have discovered over the course of this season working our way through the

Book of Nehemiah one little bit at a time every day, the Book of Nehemiah one little bit at a time every day.

The book of Nehemiah is on a more subtle level also about rebuilding the people.

The descendants of Abraham were in disarray and Nehemiah has to figure out how to help them

remember who they are and recover their identity and become a people once

again set apart for God and you think okay well that's a lot of thematic

material to fit into 13 chapters of one book I mean those are two very different

levels of what the story's about but there's a third level of what the story is about as well and that is

Remembering Nehemiah is a book about remembering that word appears quite a bit and it's pretty evenly spaced out

over the course of the book and it would seem that thematically the book is trying to communicate is that a lot of the other problems like the wall isn't up and the people are in disarray would be solved if they could remember who they are.

And they will stay solved if the people of Jerusalem can continue to remember who they are.

What the story is, they're living out, who their're are,

they're living out, who their God is,

what their calling, what their covenant is

as it relates to all of that.

But remembering in and of itself

is a word that, I guess could be a little bit ambiguous.

It can hit you different, you know?

It's one that has a lot of layers of meaning.

Some of them are a little bit ominous.

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