Daniel
Believers Church Bible Commentary
-
- $34.99
-
- $34.99
Publisher Description
Paul M. Lederach presents the stories and dream-visions of Daniel with wisdom drawn from years of developing curriculum materials and teaching and preaching in the church. He sees in Daniel a persistent call to endurance and loyality to God, even while believers suffer for their faith, pray for deliverance, and speak truth to kings. God’s reign is ever present and moving to fullness in God's own way. Although ruling beasts may rampage for a while, God is sovereign over history and cuts their time short.
This Old Testament apocalyptic book interprets ancient history through signs and symbols. It predicts a future in which martyrs are raised to everlasting life and share in the triumph of God’s kingdom, which shall fill the whole earth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lederach, a trained seminarian, eschews the sensationalistic features of most popular Daniel commentaries, addressing his book instead to serious laity and clergy. A biblically oriented, pacifist Mennonite, he holds that ``events on earth... are ultimately controlled by heaven'' and that the book of Daniel was written for two basic reasons, neither of them having to do with a detailed account of the future. First and foremost, exiled Jews were to be reassured that, despite their circumstances, God had not forgotten them; and secondly, Daniel is an ``evangelistic'' tract to the nations. Each story in Daniel is treated by means of the same basic structure: ``Preview,'' ``Explanatory Notes,'' the ``Text in Biblical Context'' and the ``Text in the Life of the Church.'' At the close of the volume is an informative collection of essays that amounts to an extended glossary. Amply annotated, this is a readable work from a scholar with a real flair for story retelling.
