We're beginning a new series this week entitled The Blueprint God's Master Plan for your life and we're going to go through the book of Nehemiah.

Let me tell you a few things about Nehemiah, a little bit of background.

Nehemiah was written halfway through the book of Ezra.

So if you read the book of Ezra, in the first six chapters or before Nehemiah is written, the rest of the book is after

Nehemiah.

Also, Esther is about 10 years before Nehemiah.

It's very possible that when Nehemiah went to the king and got permission to go back and rebuild Jerusalem, it says the queen was seated there that that was actually Esther and that's why Nehemai had favor to go back and build because the king's wife, the queen, was Jewish.

So we're not sure if that was her or not, but it's probable that it was.

Zachariah and Hagai were written about the same time Ezra was.

So you've got Zachariah, Hagai, and the first part of Ezra being written,

then Esther, then Nehemiah, then the last part of

Ezra.

So all of these books are talking about this rebuilding time after the captivity.

We just talked about the book of Daniel. Daniel was toward the end of the 70 years of captivity.

Jeremiah toward the beginning of the 70 years of captivity. So that gives you a little bit of background.

Also, until the fourth century

BC, there was no book of Nehemiah. Now listen to me, it was there, but it wasn't

called Nehemiah. It was called the second book of Ezra. There was the first book of Ezra which we now know as Ezra and

the second book of Ezra which we know as Nehemiah. But it's very obvious that Nehemiah

pinned the book and so we call it Nehemiah. So Nehemiah is about rebuilding Jerusalem and

we're going to use that about rebuilding our lives and the principles about

building our lives around the kingdom of God.

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