Seven Books of the Bible You Need Right Now

All of the Bible is precious and applicable to our lives, and some parts have specific encouragement for specific situations.

All of the Bible is precious and applicable to our lives, and some parts have specific encouragement for specific situations. The books of Israel in exile are some of the most applicable parts of the Bible for Christians in our current Western culture (generally American and European). These books are sometimes called the post-exilic literature. They narrate the story of God’s people after they had been defeated and deported under Babylonian captivity starting in around 600BC. The post-exilic literature explores how Israel navigated religious and cultural displacement and scattering from the land of promise. This scattering is commonly called the “diaspora.”

While, of course, there are a zillion ways our own moment is different and dissimilar to Israel’s two and a half millennia ago, many Western Christians resonate with the experience of displacement and diaspora. As every other Christian cultural commentator has noted, our culture is “post-Christian.” We have been exiled in significant ways from life in this world. This is, also and of course, the general experience of Christians as Christians. We live as “chosen exiles dispersed abroad” (1 Peter 1:1). The Greek word Peter uses here for “dispersed abroad” is diaspora, which comes from the word for “seed.” The Lord has often and usually scattered his people into the world like a sower tosses seed. We can resonate with the experience of the fellow members of God’s people from so many years before us, because we have a common Lord scattering us into the world.

Specifically, there are seven books of the post-exilic period that can shape our own faithful following of Jesus. The first three are historical narratives (Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther), the last three are prophetic oracles (Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi), and the middle one is a hybrid (Daniel).

I’m currently preaching through Daniel, so it’s the most fresh in my mind. I’ve preached through Nehemiah, Esther, and Haggai, so (candidly) I’m more familiar with them as well. Nevertheless, each one of these books has some unique encouragement for our current context. Let me give you three examples.

Esther: God in the Shadows

Esther is a marvel of the Old Testament. Situated a century after the exile, Esther stars the one, true and living God as the main character. Yet the story never mentions God explicitly. This sits close to our lives, because we live in a moment where God seems absent. We live in a secularized context where we walk by faith that God is there but we breathe cultural air that says he’s not. This has famously been called a moment of “disenchantment.” Instead, Esther tells us that the obvious parts of life aren’t always the most important parts. Esther tells us that God intervenes subversively and subtly in a world that refuses to see the truth. Some (many?) Christians in our context will go a lifetime without an obvious divine intervention like the famous stories of the Bible and the church. Esther tells us that such seasons are no less enchanted and infused with God’s presence, power, and purpose.

Haggai: A Time to Build

Haggai was called to prophetic ministry in the 520s BC, when the people of God have started to return to the land to rebuild the temple. They get distracted and discouraged, and instead focus on their own families and households. They use the materials for the temple to build their own houses instead of the house of the Lord. Against this, the prophet thunders that now is the time to build the temple again. This resonates with so much of our cultural decay. As Yuval Levin has pointed out in his masterful book A Time to Build, our institutions are in ruins around us. The culture, starting with the family and the church, are in desperate need of those who will devote themselves to build and rebuild from the ruins. Haggai calls us to this task, so that God may accomplish his purposes through the institution he has promised to build, the church.

Daniel: Flame-Resistant Faith in a Conflicted Culture

I’m continually struck as I study and teach through Daniel by the love-hate relationship the world has with the church. Like Nebuchadnezzar, the world loves the church when we’re a benefit and doing what it wants. But like Nebuchadnezzar, the world hates us when we won’t worship at the feet of its favored figures. This echoes what Jesus himself said: “Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours” (John 15:20). There are times when the church will find itself outside of the world’s honor and we need to follow Jesus even still in those times. There are times when the church will find the world honoring the church, and we need to be careful not to love the world in those times. Neither the antagonistic culture warring that sees only threat from the culture nor the friendly culture loving that sees only promise from the culture is enough. There’s a dynamic love-hate, back-and-forth dynamic in a Christian’s relationship to culture that requires wisdom from the Spirit. It requires faith that can resistant the allure of the world’s promises and the furious fires of the world’s threats.

As you navigate your own sense of displacement as a Christian in your context, I think you might find special help and encouragement in one of these post-exilic books. I know that I have.