Verbum et Ecclesia
ISSN: (Online) 2074-7705, (Print) 1609-9982
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Original Research
Nehemiah – Leader in times of crisis
Author:
Hans-Georg Wünch1
Affiliation:
1
Department of Old
Testament and Hebrew
Scriptures, Faculty of
Theology and Religion,
University of Pretoria,
Pretoria, South Africa
Corresponding author:
Hans-Georg Wünch,
hans-georg.wuench@tsr.de
Dates:
Received: 29 Aug. 2022
Accepted: 20 Dec. 2022
Published: 10 Aug. 2023
How to cite this article:
Hans-Georg, W., 2023,
‘Nehemiah – Leader in times
of crisis’, Verbum et Ecclesia
44(1), a2713. https://doi.
org/10.4102/ve.v44i1.2713
Copyright:
© 2023. The Authors.
Licensee: AOSIS. This work
is licensed under the
Creative Commons
Attribution License.
Times of crisis call for sustainable leadership. Often in Christian circles, (especially among
Evangelicals), the biblical figure of Nehemiah is presented as a model of leadership from
which one can learn directly how leadership can work today in our time and situation. This
article has addressed the question of whether and how this is possible. In a first step, the
author dealt with the hermeneutical question of how to derive teachings from biblical
narratives and how to apply these teachings. In a second step, he examined a number of
popular and scholarly articles and books dealing with Nehemiah and the topic of leadership.
He critically examined three models and evaluated them on the basis of his hermeneutical
considerations. It became clear that there are essentially three different approaches: 1.
Many articles and books derive leadership principles more or less directly from the
Book of Nehemiah. 2. Some authors first identify biblical principles, which they then
illustrate with the person of Nehemiah. 3. One contribution is examined in which leadership
principles based on sociological considerations are taken as a starting point, which are then
concretised with Nehemiah. On the basis of the fundamental hermeneutical considerations,
the author came to the conclusion that only models 2 and 3 are possible approaches to the
question.
Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article moves between Old
Testament and Leadership Studies. It is therefor by intention interdisciplinary. There are
implications for the understanding of Old Testament narrative texts but also for Leadership
Studies.
Keywords: leadership; Nehemiah; crisis; hermeneutics; Old Testament.
Introduction
What is ‘sustainable leadership’? How can leadership function in a way that is effective and
leads to lasting results1? There are many ways to answer this question. Especially among
Evangelical Christians, there is a tendency to ensure the sustainability of leadership methods by
deriving these methods more or less directly from the Bible. The basic idea is that if it is ‘Biblical’,
it is also ‘sustainable’. Especially the story of Nehemiah in the Old Testament is frequently used
to derive leadership principles that can – allegedly – ensure sustainability. There are two
questions arising from this procedure: (1) Does the Bible really present us with methods to use in
modern leadership situations? Methods that can ensure sustainability? (2) Can narrative texts
such as the Book of Nehemiah be used to derive such methods? This article specifically addresses
the second question.
This research will start with some basic hermeneutical considerations: Can one take a biblical
narrative, in this case that of Nehemiah, and directly derive principles of leadership from it that
are still valid today? How can one avoid simply carrying one’s own convictions into the biblical
text in order to legitimise them in this way?
Next there will be a look at Christian books, articles and writings that deal with Nehemiah under
the aspect of leadership principles. These books and articles will be from the popular Christian
field as well as from the academics. In dealing with these books and articles, different concepts
will be identified, which will then be critically questioned. In the process, leadership principles
will become clear, which can be seen in the Book of Ezra-Nehemiah or the person of Nehemiah,
and which should also be taken into account today.
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1.The term ‘sustainable leadership’ can be used in very different ways. Peterlin, Pearse and Dimovski (2015:276), for example, say that it
can either mean sustainability at local, national and international levels or be understood as the question, how sustainable
developments can be implemented. In this article, the term is understood in its broadest sense. Sustainable leadership is leadership
that not only celebrates short-term successes, but whose effects prove to be sustainable, lasting. To use Peterlin’s words: Sustainable
leadership can be defined as ‘the enduring challenge to achieve long-term success while having a positive impact on the society and
the environment in which the organization lives and works’ (p. 276).
Note: Special Collection: Sustainable leadership in times of uncertainty.
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Basic hermeneutical considerations
on narrative texts
Let me start with two examples to show the importance
of hermeneutical considerations. One of the best-known
popular books on our topic is certainly Swindoll’s (1998)
book, Hand Me Another Brick: Timeless Lessons on Leadership.
Swindoll (1998) writes:
However, there is one book, written about 425 B.C., that looms
as a classic work on effective leadership […] It was written by a
man who […] not only possessed an exceptional personal
philosophy of leadership, but he lived it out as well. […]
His book bears his name: Nehemiah. (pp. 2–3)
It can be seen clearly, that Nehemiah is described here as the
perfect example of a leader. Swindoll will be dealt with in
more detail later.
On the other hand, there is a college paper from Luther
Seminary in Minnesota by a student named Steve Thomason,
written at the conclusion of a course on ‘Congregational
Leadership’. Thomason (2011) writes after a brief overview of
what many Christian writers have pointed out as positive
aspects about Nehemiah’s leadership:
While these observations about Nehemiah may be true, noble,
and applicable to the church leader, is it possible that they are
drawn from a distorted hermeneutic? What if that is not the
purpose of Nehemiah? What if Nehemiah is actually a
negative example of leadership and is held in contrast to
the great leaders of Israel’s past like Moses, David, and
Elijah? (p. 1)
He then goes on to claim that Nehemiah was never
commissioned by God to build the wall. According to
Thomason (2011:2), this was his own human decision. Then
he also critically questions the prayer life of Nehemiah,
because he calls God the ‘God of heaven’, which was actually
a name that comes from the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism.
Thomason therefore thinks that Nehemiah had been mixing
religions (p. 3).
Thomason (2011:4) cites a number of other aspects,
including that Nehemiah’s project led to ethnic cleansing
and violence, especially when it came to the intermarriage
issue.
Both authors, Swindoll and Thomason, claim to be arguing
biblically. But, as Thomason rightly points out, they start
from different basic hermeneutical considerations. However,
Thomason also seems to think far too little about the
hermeneutics of narrative texts. In any case, it is clear from
these two representatives that the basic hermeneutical
presuppositions are essential for the outcome.
Before starting to think about hermeneutics, I would first like
to state my own position towards the Bible clearly. This is
essential for all hermeneutical discussions. I believe that the
Bible really lives up to its self-claim to be the Word of God.
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Original Research
It does not only contain texts that are the word of God, or
can be used by God as his word, or tells of what people
have experienced with God; it is the word of God.
Word of God, however, in a human and historically given
form. That is, it shares in all the misunderstandings and other
limitations that human language entails. And it is written in
a certain historical-cultural situation and intended for people
in this historical-cultural situation. It has not fallen from
heaven or is been dictated by God and is therefore fixed in
form for all time but contains God’s will for people in their
historical, cultural and salvation-historical situations. As
such, it is also subject to the literary principles that are
applied at the time of writing.2
With regard to narrative texts, it must be stated that it is not
the words or deeds of the persons involved that have a claim
to truth (apart from Jesus himself), but that it must always be
asked how the reported events are to be evaluated from an
overall biblical perspective or how they are evaluated by the
author of the story.
In this context, I would like to refer to the new literary
method. This method was originally developed by
Alter (2011) in his book The Art of Biblical Narrative.3 In the
German-speaking world, it became known mainly through
the book of Shimon Bar-Efrat, Wie die Bibel erzählt (2006)
and the workbook Literaturwissenschaftliche Bibelauslegung
by Utzschneider and Nitsche (2014). The new literary
method considers the so-called ‘omniscient narrator’ (cf. BarEfrat 2006:26–33) to be an essential element of Old Testament
narratives. The narrator informs about the thoughts and
feelings of the persons involved, about spiritual backgrounds
in the world beyond and about God’s thoughts and
judgements. He does this through explicit reports (e.g. in the
Book of Job) or through the manner of reporting. For example,
the first words spoken by an acting person in a narrative are
often used to characterise that person (Alter 2011:93–94). Or
in a dialogue, the narrator reports only the words of one
interlocutor, while the other remains silent.
Through these and other literary devices, the narrator
informs us how to value and understand a story. In view of
the Book of Nehemiah, it is therefore important to ask how
Nehemiah’s deeds and words are portrayed and evaluated
by the author. Of course, in narratives, there are also many
statements and reports that are not explicitly evaluated, but
where it is simply a matter of recording the event as such.
This shall be illustrated briefly with an example from
Nehemiah. Several of the works examined have inferred
from the fact that Nehemiah was a cupbearer to the king
2.As there is of course not enough room here for further hermeneutic considerations,
I am referring to the fundamental work of Maier (2020), Biblische Hermeneutik. A
very concise overview can also be found in the work of Thiselton (2009),
Hermeneutics, cf. also Carson and Woodbridge (eds. Hermeneutics, Authority, and
Canon (1986).
3.The book was first published in 1981. A few years later, Bar-Efrat (1989) published
his work Narrative Art in the Bible (which was originally written in Hebrew). Other
important authors working with this methodology are, for example, Berlin (2008),
Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative and Sternberg (1987), The Poetics of
Biblical Narrative.
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that it is essential for leaders to have a good reputation and
to be reliable, as these were important requirements for
a cupbearer (e.g. Peter 2022:3; Yamauchi 2017:267–268).
However, at no point in the text is the fact that Nehemiah was
a cupbearer emphasised or is it implied that there is any
particular value attached to it. One can therefore no more
infer a requirement for a leader from this fact than from
the fact that Nehemiah had presumably been a eunuch as a
royal court official (Fensham 1982:157).
However, in this context, it also becomes clear that another
hermeneutical consideration is necessary: Is it possible to
transfer insights from the Book of Nehemiah more or less
directly to the present time? And one step further: Can
universally valid principles of leadership be derived from it?
Let us look again at the topic of ‘prayer’. It should be
undoubted that prayer is always an essential aspect
throughout the Bible. So, it is safe to say that Nehemiah can
be a model in this respect for every Christian today. But can
one therefore also automatically conclude that a Christian
leader should always pray first before making a decision
because Nehemiah did so? So, in what way does the prayer
life have a special function for Nehemiah as a ‘leader’? And
even if it had, does the same still apply today?
Here it becomes clear what is important when dealing with
the Bible: it shows us people who lived with God. People
who were flawed and yet were used by God. It is quite right
to discover certain spiritual principles when dealing
with these people and their history and then to ask
how these can be transferred to today. But this requires a
thorough and conscious, hermeneutically reflected approach.
Unfortunately, this is precisely what is missing in many of
the articles and books examined.
The biblical texts, and especially the narratives do therefore
not contain ‘once and for all’ principles of leadership, which
can just be used today to ensure ‘sustainability’ in our
leadership efforts. But by applying the basic theological
principles in a critical way to modern situations, one can
come to develop also leadership principles, which in turn
can then be exemplified through biblical narratives.
Categorisation of the works studied
Basically, there are three different categories to be found in
the books and articles concerning the leadership qualities of
Nehemiah although in some cases there are also works that
cannot be assigned quite clearly to just one of the categories.
The categories found are:
• Works in which universally valid leadership principles
are derived directly from the Book of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah is the uncrowned hero. Everything he does is
right and God given, and one can and must learn from it.
• Works in which certain principles derived from the Bible
are associated with Nehemiah. These may be general
spiritual principles or principles of leadership. Nehemiah
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Original Research
serves as a confirmation of these principles or as an
excellent example of them.
• Works that assume predetermined leadership principles
drawn from sociological models of leadership. Nehemiah
serves as an example that applies these principles.
We will now have a closer look at these categories:
Works in which universally applicable leadership
principles are derived from the Book of
Nehemiah
Under this category, there are many popular publications.
But also a recognised theologian such as Yamauchi (2017).
One of the best-known representatives of this category is
certainly the already mentioned Swindoll (1998). I will
therefore examine his book Hand Me Another Brick a little
more closely here.
Even the subtitle of his work raises questions: Timeless Lessons
on Leadership. Swindoll (1998:2) assumes that the Book of
Nehemiah is a ‘manual for leaders’ and contains ‘timeless
and reliable guidelines that work’ (p. 3). He believes that
Nehemiah was called by God to be a leader:
Nehemiah heard God saying to him, ‘I want you to be the leader
in the building of that wall. You are My man for the job’.
(Swindoll 1998:4)
Where he gets this knowledge is not said, for the book itself
is silent on the subject, at least in Nehemiah 1. Only later does
Swindoll (1998) mention Nehemiah 2:12, translating the
verse as follows:
I did not tell any one what my God was putting into my mind.
(p. 53)
The situation this refers to is Nehemiah’s arrival in
Jerusalem. He waited there for 3 days and did nothing.
During this time, according to Swindoll, he received
instructions from God, which he then implemented. In his
view, God told Nehemiah in these 3 days how to tackle the
problem – by first taking stock of the condition of the wall in
a nightly action. Swindoll concludes that one should listen
to God before action. However, this seems to be eisegesis
rather than exegesis.
For if one looks at the Hebrew text, it becomes clear that the
translation is not correct. It should read: ‘I had said to no
one …’. So here it is about what had been on Nehemiah’s
mind for some time and which he was convinced God had
laid on his heart when he was still in Susa: the building of
the wall.
Swindoll (1998:24) identifies four leadership principles in the
book: ‘1. A Leader has a Clear Recognition of the Needs’, ‘2.
A Leader Is Personally Concerned with the Need’ (p. 26), ‘3.
A Serious Leader Goes First to God with the Problem’ (p. 28)
and ‘4. A Leader is Available to Meet the Need Himself’
(p. 32). In addition to these four principles, Swindoll (1998)
derives many other aspects, for example, he infers three
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practical truths (as he puts it) from the opposition Nehemiah
experiences in chapter 4:
1. It is impossible to lead anyone without facing opposition. … 2.
It is essential to face opposition in prayer. … 3. Prayer is not all
that is necessary if opposition grows. (p. 75)
Again and again, as here, one has the impression that
Swindoll names general truths that one can actually see
without the Book of Nehemiah. But by ‘taking’ them from the
‘manual for leaders’, which contains ‘timeless and reliable
guidelines’, they are, so to speak, ‘biblically’ justified. The
question remains open as to why he takes up these elements
but not others. With the same methodology, should one not
deduce from Nehemiah’s prayer in Nehemiah 3:36–37 that a
leader should bring his opponents before God and pray like
Nehemiah: ‘Do not cover their iniquity, and do not forgive
their sin’?
Original Research
Christ taught and demonstrated an approach to leadership and
management that is considerably different than that found in
most organisations, even church related organisations. (p. 397)
In his consideration of Nehemiah’s style of leadership, he
starts from two basic principles that he finds in 1 Corinthians
2:1–5: ‘humanity and humility’ and gives relatively detailed
reasons for this (Maciariello 2003:398). In his view, Nehemiah
offers an excellent example of the New Testament teaching
on leadership and management:
The qualities of leadership Nehemiah exhibited and the
management practices he employed to accomplish this
project, as reported in the Old Testament, provide
extraordinary examples paralleling New Testament teachings
about leadership and management – principles we can follow
as we seek to lead and manage our organisations today.
(Maciariello 2003:401)
Let us now turn to the second category:
Maciariello also assumes these principles to be timeless, but
he finds them in the doctrinal texts of the New Testament and
not in the narrative text of the Book of Nehemiah. Essential
for him is the principle of ‘servant leadership’ derived from
Jesus and his teachings. Nehemiah serves to illustrate this
principle, not to justify it.
Works in which principles drawn from the Bible
are associated with Nehemiah
Maciariello (2003) identifies seven aspects of these ‘servant
leadership’ qualities in Nehemiah:
Many other representatives of this category could be
mentioned here,4 but that would go beyond the scope of this
article.
Basically, the number of works in this category is manageable.
It includes works in which general biblical principles are
taken and applied and those in which specific principles of
leadership derived from the Bible are drawn upon.
Nehemiah is not seen as the starting point for the
development of these principles, but behaviours and
character traits of Nehemiah are seen as examples of the
application of these principles.
The article by Maciariello (2003),5 ‘Lessons in Leadership and
Management from Nehemiah’, will serve as an example for
this category.6 Maciariello is often quoted by Christian authors
who belong to category 1. Yet his approach is different.
Maciariello starts from a brief consideration of the leadership
style of Jesus. Jesus taught, according to Maciariello (2003), a
completely different approach to leadership than those that
were or are common:
4.For example, Kleine (2022), Antoine(2014), Birnbaum (n.d.), Dix (2010), Friedman
and Hersovitz (2019) (taking the position that Ezra and Nehemiah corrected
mistakes made by Zerubbabel [p. 1]), Getz (1995), Ming et al. (2021) (who see
Nehemiah as a model of ‘transformational leadership’), Oh and Sung (n.d.), Page
(2016) (which mentions Nehemiah in the title but talks about him in a very limited
way – 15 out of 220 pages), Roth (2013) (a course on the subject), Ugwuanyi (2021)
(Ugwuanyi’s basic thesis is that Nehemiah is a model of a leader who is non-violent
and wants to create peace), Yamauchi (2017).
5.Maciariello is a professor of management at the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of
Management at Claremont Graduate University.
6.Other representatives of this category are, for example, Ngama and Allen (2017), ‘By
whose authority? Leadership in Ezra-Nehemiah’, who identify the fundamental
principle of God’s sovereignty in the books of Ezra-Nehemiah (p. 253) and ask what
leadership principles can be discerned from this in the story; Simoneaux (2016),
‘Nehemiah – A biblical leadership model’, who takes leadership principles as a
starting point and sees Nehemiah as evidence of their validity; Stanley (2016),
Visioneering. Your guide for discovering and maintaining personal vision, which first
reflects generally on how vision is created and executed, and then illustrates this
with the example of Nehemiah.
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• Identifying with the people he seeks to serve.
• Seeking to solve a problem for God’s people.
• Acting based on a thorough knowledge of God’s
character.
• Praying to God for favour with worldly powers to permit
him to carry out his task.
• Long-range planning for the requirements of completing
the project.
• Explicitly acknowledging God’s providence, as effected
through wordly means […].
• Acknowledging and depending upon the sovereignty of
God. (pp. 402–403)
Although this sounds quite similar to category 1
representatives, there is a significant difference. Nehemiah’s
behaviour does not serve as a justification for principles that
are still valid today, but as an example of what can be derived
from the Bible as a whole and especially the teaching and life
of Jesus:
Nehemiah is an example of Christ’s teaching about persons in
positions of authority: ‘whoever wishes to become great among
you must be your servant’. (Maciariello 2003:404)
Maciariello has thus taken a hermeneutically very important
step by not deriving principles directly from narrative texts,
but by first finding them in the doctrinal texts of the Bible and
then asking how and in what way they are exemplarily
applied in the narrative texts.
We now come to a final category, for which, however, I have
only found one example:
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Works in which pre-set leadership principles are
taken as a starting point
Thomas et al. (2015) wrote an article ‘Fluid leadership
in dynamic contexts’, which appeared in the Journal of
Management History. Nehemiah is seen here as an example of
a fundamental principle of leadership, the so-called ‘fluid
leadership’. What is meant is that a leader must adapt his
methods to the respective situations:
We found that Nehemiah adapted his behaviours such that his
prominently displayed leadership style varied based on
dynamic configurations of demands placed on him during his
rebuilding efforts. As Nehemiah progressed through distinct
stages of his mission, he differentially emphasized tactics
associated with different styles of leadership in response to the
contextual demands that were most salient during each stage.
(Thomas et al. 2015:98)
The authors use the so-called ‘leaderplex model’ developed
by Robert Hooijberg et al. (1997). This model shows that
people who know and use a variety of leadership styles
adapt better to different circumstances and contexts. Using
Nehemiah as a case study, the authors show the different
concepts Nehemiah used. These are explained on the basis of
Nehemiah’s story and examined through a narrative
analysis.7 The authors explicitly state:
We drew from contemporary insights on leadership styles and
analysed them against the backdrop of Nehemiah’s case using
the sociohistorical method. This method entails the collection
and analysis of data in the form of historical texts to examine
specific phenomena (e.g. leadership) that reflect behaviour of
individuals and social processes as they unfold over time.
(Thomas et al. 2015:101)
Three different leadership styles are examined: ‘authentic,
servant and transformational’ (Thomas et al. 2015:102). These
three leadership styles are then mapped to the three historical
situations in which Nehemiah assumed leadership: his way
to and arrival in Jerusalem, the process of building the wall
and the subsequent cultural reform (p. 102). In doing so, the
biblical accounts are examined according to given criteria,
each of which is assigned to the three leadership styles, and it
is evaluated how often these criteria appear in the accounts.
The results are vividly summarised in a table. This shows
that Nehemiah 1–2 (arrival in Jerusalem) essentially reflects
an authentic leadership style, whereby the aspect of servant
leadership also has a high value here. However, this is much
more pronounced in chapters 4–7 (building the wall), while
the last phase (Neh 8–13, cultural reform) is mainly
characterised by the transformational style.
This is not the place to elaborate further. In any case, it
should have become clear that the narrative text is not the
starting point here either, but that the narrative serves to
illustrate principles given by the scholars. Nehemiah serves
as a good example of ‘fluid leadership’, not as a standard
for all times.
7.This does not mean an analysis using the methods of literary studies but simply an
analysis of the narrative.
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Summary
In this article, the aim was first to make some basic,
hermeneutical remarks on dealing with narrative texts of
the Bible, explicitly from a basic conservative-evangelical8
understanding. The core idea was that the biblical texts must
be seen and understood in their historical-cultural setting,
and that one must be very careful with narrative texts not to
carry values into the text, but to work out through a thorough,
literary-scientific investigation how the respective authors
understood their narrative and what values they expressed
through the literary means in them. The biblical narratives
are not meant to provide us more or less directly with
principles which one just can use today to ensure
‘sustainability’ in our leadership efforts. They are examples
of leadership from a specific time and cultural setting and
may only be used as such.
In a second step, a series of writings, articles and books were
then examined and categorised. There are many works, who
think that Nehemiah presents timeless principles for
leadership. These principles are often essentially correct and
applicable. Nevertheless, the underlying hermeneutic
appears questionable. Because of the overall strongly
assertive character (often without any thorough work on the
text), it is difficult to critically engage with these statements.
This is different with the works, where arguments are made
on the basis of biblical values or on findings of the social
sciences, about which one can certainly enter into conversation
with the authors.
What is largely missing, in my view, is a thorough
narratological analysis of the Book of Nehemiah. This could
certainly provide further arguments for the question of
whether principles can be derived from the book itself that is
still worthy of attention today. But that would be a task for
another time.
Acknowledgements
Competing interests
The author has declared that no competing interest exists.
Author’s contributions
H-G.W. is the sole author of this research article.
Ethical considerations
This article followed all ethical standards for research without
direct contact with human or animal subjects.
Funding information
This research received no specific grant from any funding
agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
8.The term ‘evangelical’ is not used here in a narrow, fundamentalist sense, nor in a
political way. It is used to indicate an attitude towards the Bible, which assumes that
the Bible is the Word of God in a form that has become and grown historically (see
above).
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Original Research
Data availability
Maier, G., 2020, Biblische Hermeneutik, 15th edn., Reihe, Bd. Band 2Bd, SCM R.
Brockhaus, Holzgerlingen.
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data
were created or analysed in this study.
Ming, D., Purwoko, P.S., Wahyuni, S. & Suharto, D., 2021, ‘Transformational leadership
of Nehemia in spirituality, integrity and visioner to the contemporary leaders’,
Theology 1(6), 12–18. https://doi.org/10.24018/theology.2021.1.6.38
Ngama, D. & Allen, M., 2017, ‘By whose authority?: Leadership in Ezra-Nehemiah’, in
B. Forrest & C. Roden (eds.), Biblical leadership: Theology for the everyday reader,
pp. 249–265, Kregel-Academics, Grand Rapids, MI.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of
the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or
position of any affiliated agency of the author.
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