One of the most neglected areas in all of Christian teaching
is the writings that surround the Babylonian captivity. There are some real
gems that are dug out and often made aware to us in Daniel (a couple of
stories) and Esther but the majority is left alone. The real shame is that this
collective story and the encouragement that is found within are so very
relevant to a post-everything culture.
Gerald Bilkes has made a portion of this important narrative
available to us through his work Memoirs of the Way Home: Ezra and Nehemiah as a Call to Conversion. Bilkes uses the
parable of the prodigal son to frame his approach to reading the return
narratives of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Bilkes is successful in making these often-neglected
narratives relevant to a New Testament audience by synthesizing the call of the
Father to a wayward sinner with the call home to the Jews from captivity. Bilkes has a healthy and robust understanding
of salvation and the resting of the initiation of the Gospel call solely on the
work of God. However, he does not give sufficient reasoning on the biblical
basis for his approach. The reader will need to accept a robustly reformed view
of salvation in order to accept the thesis for this book.
Overall, this book is a quick read and a great introduction
to the narrative of the return from exile. This is an area of critique, as
well, since there could be much more said in this treatment of two books of the
Bible in less than 200 pages. If you are looking for a robust and deep dig into
the mines of God’s truth then you better look elsewhere. This is more of a
site-seeing tour.
I was provided a copy of this book for the purposes of an
honest review.