“Listen to me, all you in distant lands! Pay attention, you who are far away! The Lord called me before my birth; from within the womb he called me by name. He made my words of judgment as sharp as a sword. He has hidden me in the shadow of his hand. I am like a sharp arrow in his quiver.

He said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, and you will bring me glory.’ I replied, ‘But my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose. Yet I leave it all in the Lord’s hand; I will trust God for my reward.’ And now the Lord speaks—the one who formed me in my mother’s womb to be his servant, who commissioned me to bring Israel back to him.

The Lord has honored me, and my God has given me strength. He says, ‘You will do more than restore the people of Israel to me. I will make you a light to the Gentiles, and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.’ The Lord, the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel, says to the one who is despised and rejected by the nations, to the one who is the servant of rulers: ‘Kings will stand at attention when you pass by. Princes will also bow low because of the Lord, the faithful one, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.'” Isaiah 49:1-7, NLT

Note from the Africa Study Bible

This passage described the time when the Jewish exiles were in a hopeless situation in Babylon. Their future seemed very dark with no hope of returning to their homeland. Isaiah prophesied that God would intervene in much the same way he did when he brought them out of Egypt. Once again they would return to their own land. Isaiah described a Servant through whom God would fulfil his promises to Israel (Isaiah 49:5). What is most striking in Isaiah’s prophecy is this Servant—Jesus—would not only restore Israel, but also the Gentiles (Isaiah 49:6). This was in fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham that “all the families of the earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3).

In Christ, we see the love of God for all peoples and his plan to save people from all nations. Christ tells his followers to fulfil his plan by making disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18). All Christians—not only missionaries or pastors or deacons—are part of bringing salvation to the nations.

God’s Servant gives freedom to the prisoners, brings light to people in darkness, restores all of God’s people, and restores all of God’s creation. We are called to be part of that effort. The world may seem hopeless, but the fact that Christians are in this broken world means that God is still at work. Let us regularly join with other Christians to pray for people of other nations who need physical and spiritual salvation.

Article from the Africa Study Bible

The Israelites were suffering, so God sent an angel to Gideon to say that he was to be Israel’s saviour. From the moment the angel started speaking, Gideon asked one question after another. God patiently responded to each of his questions with a powerful sign. Even after seeing all the signs, Gideon still had some doubts. But God patiently nurtured Gideon’s faith to maturity, and Gideon was victorious.

A wise pidgin proverb from Cameroon says, Pikin we e so so send hi hand for man hi mob, di so because hi no hear hot for teet, meaning “The child who kept sending his hand inside the mouth did so because he never felt the bite of the teeth.” Like Gideon, many of us keep asking God questions.
We want him to give us a sign. God is patient with us because he wants to nurture and increase our faith.

When those younger than us ask question after question or do silly things, we must remember how patient God is with us and how he responds in the same way. Let children ask questions and make mistakes. Your patience will bring them closer to you and will help you nurture them to be better adults.

Look inside the Africa Study Bible

‘But Lord,’ Gideon replied, ‘how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!’

The Lord said to him, ‘I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.’ Judges 6:14-16, NLT

Gideon: Note from the Africa Study Bible

The Israelites needed help. Because they had done evil, God handed them over to their enemy, the Midianites. The Midianites were so numerous and so relentless that they robbed Israel of its food and ruined their crops. The Israelite army that had previously been victorious over its enemies was now hiding in mountains and caves.

Then the Israelites cried out to God. His response to the distress of his people was to use the least significant person in the smallest clan of Manasseh to deliver them—Gideon. Gideon thought he was the lowliest of a lowly people, but God called him a “mighty hero.” God did not tell Gideon to seek help from Israel’s generals and strong men. Instead, God told him to use the strength he had (Judges 6:14). And God promised to be with him.

Do you need help? Do you think you are too weak to fight the battles you are facing? When we are weak and crushed by the enemy like the Israelites were, we must cry out to God for help. We should trust and depend on God just like Gideon did. God’s help is what we need. His power works best when we admit we are weak. When we recognize our weakness, we can find strength in God (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

Look inside the Africa Study Bible

‘At just the right time, I will respond to you.
On the day of salvation I will help you.
I will protect you and give you to the people
as my covenant with them.
Through you I will reestablish the land of Israel
and assign it to its own people again.

I will say to the prisoners, ‘Come out in freedom,’
and to those in darkness, ‘Come into the light.’
They will be my sheep, grazing in green pastures and on hills that were previously bare.

They will neither hunger nor thirst.
The searing sun will not reach them anymore.
For the Lord in his mercy will lead them;
he will lead them beside cool waters.

And I will make my mountains into level paths for them.
The highways will be raised above the valleys.
See, my people will return from far away,
from lands to the north and west,
and from as far south as Egypt.’

Sing for joy, O heavens!
Rejoice, O earth!
Burst into song, O mountains!
For the Lord has comforted his people
and will have compassion on them in their suffering.” Isaiah 49:8-13, NLT

Note from the Africa Study Bible

This passage described the time when the Jewish exiles were in a hopeless situation in Babylon. Their future seemed very dark with no hope of returning to their homeland. Isaiah prophesied that God would intervene in much the same way he did when he brought them out of Egypt. Once again they would return to their own land. Isaiah described a Servant through whom God would fulfil his promises to Israel (Isaiah 49:5). What is most striking in Isaiah’s prophecy is this Servant—Jesus—would not only restore Israel, but also the Gentiles (Isaiah 49:6). This was in fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham that “all the families of the earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3).

In Christ, we see the love of God for all peoples and his plan to save people from all nations. Christ tells his followers to fulfil his plan by making disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18). All Christians—not only missionaries or pastors or deacons—are part of bringing salvation to the nations. God’s Servant gives freedom to the prisoners, brings light to people in darkness, restores all of God’s people, and restores all of God’s creation.

We are called to be part of that effort. The world may seem hopeless, but the fact that Christians are in this broken world means that God is still at work. Let us regularly join with other Christians to pray for people of other nations who need physical and spiritual salvation.

Look inside the Africa Study Bible

Article from the Africa Study Bible

When David was tending his sheep, he had no idea how God would use his life experience. His experience in guarding the sheep gave him the skills and confidence he needed to slay Goliath (1 Samuel 17:40). In this most beloved psalm, David writes from his experience under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to write a poem that is one of the most beautiful and encouraging things ever written—perhaps the most quoted part of the Old Testament. How many of us have gone to take comfort in the words of Psalm 23 in our darkest moments?

David was assigned the care of sheep as he was the youngest and least qualified of his brothers. When they went off to war, he was left at home. Shepherds were generally looked down upon in society, yet without David’s experience with sheep, Goliath would have not been slain and we would not have Psalm 23. Most young people, even new university graduates, must start with the work nobody else wants to do. Whatever God has called you to do when you are young, do not despise the experience. Work hard, learn all you can, and someday in the future you may be very surprised how God uses it to equip you for your most important work and to greatly bless others.

Taken from the Africa Study Bible

Daniel was among the young men of Judah’s leading families who were exiled to Babylon after King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem. Daniel and others were chosen to be trained in the language and customs of their captors. This was a golden opportunity to escape their indignity of living as slaves and refugees. But the privilege and training they were offered required them to give up a part of their ethnic identity and moral purity.

Although he was a young man, Daniel understood the implications and resolved not to eat food that would have defiled him. God honoured Daniel by causing the Babylonian official to deal favourably with him and his three friends when they suggested a test.

Tribal wars, political and religious clashes, terrorism, and poverty cause many of us to live as refugees, both within and outside of our continent. Many young people seek to escape a life of poverty by becoming economic migrants in foreign lands.

The reason why many of us are refugees or in unfamiliar situations may be different from the reason Daniel was in Exile. And many of us living in other cultures may be considered second-class citizens instead of privileged officials, the way Daniel and his friends were. Nevertheless, we face the same pressures to abandon our culture and faith that Daniel and his friends faced.

It is sad that in their quest for a better life, many believers in Africa are forgoing their Christian and cultural identity and allowing themselves to be contaminated with the evil of the world around them. Daniel offered Nebuchadnezzar’s chief of staff a plan to test God’s power. Let us dare to be a Daniel and hold to God’s values and plan for us wherever we are.

“Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were four of the young men chosen, all from the tribe of Judah. The chief of staff renamed them with these Babylonian names: Daniel was called Belteshazzar. Hananiah was called Shadrach. Mishael was called Meshach. Azariah was called Abednego. But Daniel was determined not to defile himself by eating the food and wine given to them by the king. He asked the chief of staff for permission not to eat these unacceptable foods.” Daniel 1:6-8, NLT

When Daniel and his friends were taken into Exile, they risked losing their national identity and their faith. The king tried to make them Babylonians by giving them names that mentioned Babylonian gods and training them in Babylonian culture.

The king tried to feed them food that would defile them, perhaps the meat of unclean animals God had forbidden the Israelites to eat. Should these four young men disobey the king or disobey God? They bravely found a solution. Together they ate vegetables and water for ten days and were a witness to God’s power. At the end of the test, they “looked healthier and better nourished than the young men who had been eating the food assigned by the king” (Daniel 1:15).

The Ovimbundu of Angola say, Kuatoko lokuene likaliove cikupōla, meaning, “Hold onto a thing together. By yourself it is very heavy.” Alone in a foreign land, Daniel and his friends easily could have become Babylonians, and we would never have heard of them. But they stood together to hold onto their faith.

If you are in a situation where there are many pressures to conform to worldly standards, pray for God to send you a fellow Christian to encourage you and walk alongside you. When you face a tricky situation, pray for God to reveal a solution that will allow you to honor him.

A Swahili proverb says, Muvumbo wa kañonyi ye witubula
kajo ko aja, meaning, “The beak of the bird is what tells us
the things it eats.” In other words, the kind of person that you
are is shown by your words.

Psalm 77 is a typical psalm of lament. The writer is in
deep trouble and crying out to God. Like a bird’s beak, the
psalmist’s own words describe him as crying out and shouting
(Psalm 77:1), troubled (Psalm 77:2), moaning (Psalm 77:3),
searching for God (Psalm 77:2), longing for help (Psalm 77:3),
and so distressed he cannot pray or sleep (Psalm 77:4). Some
Christians think that showing these kinds of emotions is a lack
of faith, that a person of deep faith only expresses positive
emotions like joy and peace. Some people teach that the
emotional words found in this psalm show that a person is
spiritually weak and does not trust God. But the psalms of
lament teach us something different. The very fact that over
one-third of all the Psalms are laments or complaints shows
us that God is ready to hear our cry. He chose to include an
important number of these kinds of prayers in his holy Word
so we could learn how to express our distress.

Lament psalms follow a pattern with certain characteristics,
some of which can be seen in Psalm 77. Four of the main
parts are calling out to God and asking for help (Psalm 77:1-
3), expressing the lament (Psalm 77:4-10), then choosing to
remember how God acted in the past, and then praising him
on that basis (Psalm 77:11-20).

Verses 10 and 11 are the turning point of the psalm. The
writer was so discouraged that he wondered if God had turned
against him, but then he chose to start thinking about all the
wonderful things God did in the past and it changed his outlook.

God does not ask his children to pretend to be something
they are not or to be dishonest about their struggles.
He encourages us to tell the truth about our distress and
trouble, to give voice to our doubts and fears. But we should
not stop there. We must go on to remember with praise and
thanksgiving all the ways God has proved himself in the past.
Those memories and offering praise for God’s great deeds give
us hope for the future. Let our words show that we are weak
and struggling people who choose to trust in a powerful and
faithful God, even when all seems dark around us!

Read Psalm 77

I cry out to God; yes, I shout.

Oh, that God would listen to me!

When I was in deep trouble,

I searched for the Lord.

All night long I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven,

but my soul was not comforted.

I think of God, and I moan,

overwhelmed with longing for his help.

Interlude

You don’t let me sleep.

I am too distressed even to pray!

I think of the good old days,

long since ended,

when my nights were filled with joyful songs.

I search my soul and ponder the difference now.

Has the Lord rejected me forever?

Will he never again be kind to me?

Is his unfailing love gone forever?

Have his promises permanently failed?

Has God forgotten to be gracious?

Has he slammed the door on his compassion?

Interlude

And I said, “This is my fate;

the Most High has turned his hand against me.”

But then I recall all you have done, O Lord;

I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago.

They are constantly in my thoughts.

I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works.

O God, your ways are holy.

Is there any god as mighty as you?

You are the God of great wonders!

You demonstrate your awesome power among the nations.

By your strong arm, you redeemed your people,

the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

Interlude

When the Red Sea*  saw you, O God,

its waters looked and trembled!

The sea quaked to its very depths.

The clouds poured down rain;

the thunder rumbled in the sky.

Your arrows of lightning flashed.

Your thunder roared from the whirlwind;

the lightning lit up the world!

The earth trembled and shook.

Your road led through the sea,

your pathway through the mighty waters—

a pathway no one knew was there!

You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep,

with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.

Learn more about the Africa Study Bible