Read more
Although each is quite different, the books of Joel, Obadiah, and Micah are all survival literature. All three address the community that survived the crushing Babylonian destruction of Judah in 586 BCE. And all three seek to help this community cope by giving voice to its disorientation, trauma, anxiety, and rage. Each book insists that God will wrestle a positive future out of catastrophe, granting both physical and spiritual renewal. No matter how dire the circumstances, Israel can trust in the gracious God who will never abandon the faith community.
In this thirty-fifth volume in the Believers Church Bible Commentary series, Old Testament scholar Daniel Epp-Tiessen explores the diverse, yet related content of these three prophetic books, always paying attention to how they might speak words of grace and healing into the disorientation, exile, and challenges of our own time. He also confronts the theologically problematic features of these books, especially their conviction that the salvation of God's people requires that God obliterate their enemies. This volume explores how we might read Joel, Obadiah, and Micah in light of the larger biblical story of God's saving purposes that reach their fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
About the Believers Church Bible Commentary series This readable commentary series is for all who seek more fully to understand the original message of Scripture and its meaning for today--Sunday school teachers, members of Bible study groups, students, pastors, and other seekers.
--From the Series Foreword
About the author
Dan Epp-Tiessen is semiretired from teaching Bible at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Canada, where he has taught since 1998. Daniel earned a BTh at Canadian Mennonite Bible College in Winnipeg, a BA and MA at the University of Manitoba, and a PhD at University of St. Michael's College in Toronto. Along the way Dan has been a pastor, homemaker, and spent four years working for Mennonite Central Committee in the rural Philippines during a time of revolutionary ferment. Dan and his wife, Esther, are active members of Home Street Mennonite Church in Winnipeg. They have two adult sons with partners, and two lovely granddaughters.
