Their Problems And Ours

About these Units

EasyEnglish Study Units (Level B) that show that God is sufficient whatever the problem
www.easyenglish.info

by Raymond Brown, M.A., M.Th., Ph.D.

translated into EasyEnglish by Mary Read
A word list at the end explains words with a *star by them.

LIST OF CHAPTERS

1. Job: The Problem of Suffering

2. Moses: The Problem of Feeling Inadequate (to feel the lack of necessary
qualities)

3. Caleb: The Problem of Fear

4. Samson: The Problem of Being Worldly (to have the world’s attitudes and
behaviour)

5. David: The Problem of Slander (when people say evil things that are false
against someone)

6. Jehoshaphat: The Problem of Anxiety (to be anxious)

7. Elijah: The Problem of Depression (to feel or to be depressed)

8. Jonah: The Problem of Prejudice (to have strong ideas and to refuse to
think of anybody else’s opinions)

9. Isaiah: The Problem of Guilt (to be or to feel guilty)

10. Jeremiah: The Problem of Doubt

11. Ezekiel: The Problem of Times of Trouble

12. Haggai: The Problem of Materialism (to be greedy for things)

13. Malachi: The Problem of Indifference (when someone does not care; it may
be a lack of care about life, other people or the things of God).

INTRODUCTION

Paul says: ‘Everything that people wrote in the past was to teach us. They wrote those things so
that we could have hope. That hope comes from the patience and strength that the Bible gives to
us’ (Romans 15:4).

1
Here Paul suggests reasons why we should study the OT. (OT means Old Testament, the first part
of the Bible, which the writers wrote before Jesus’ birth.) The OT is history. It also has stories of
people's lives. These great OT stories:
• Teach the mind. (Read 2 Timothy 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 10:11.)
• Encourage the heart. One translation of Romans 15:4 uses this word. The OT stories
encourage us. We all have times when we desire some word from God. We know that this would
encourage us. It would help us in our difficulties.
• Make the will strong. (Note: The will is the part of us that makes us able to choose). The
Holy Spirit gives us the strength to continue when things are hard.

Jerome K. Jerome writes funny books. His most famous one is ‘Three Men in a Boat’. The man
who is telling the story visits a library. He wants to know what to do about a minor illness. He finds
that he seems to have 101 serious diseases! That is not the purpose of this book! Nobody will have
all the problems that are in this book.

But all of us have bad times. We may have problems. We may feel sad. One trouble often leads to
another too. Some of the subjects are very similar. They may go with each other. So, fear and
worry may go together. But they are separate here. One situation may not be the same as the
reader’s. Another one will be. There is something else important. We may not have these
difficulties ourselves. But we may need to help people who do have them.

Raymond Brown

By full permission of author

It has not been possible, so far, to discover the copyright holder of this book. If this information
becomes available, WA will gladly recognise the publisher fully. The original publisher was
Oliphants (1969) SBN 551 00136 4
Wycliffe Associates (UK) EasyEnglish(C) Translation (Level) B
AD 2001
WYCLIFFE ASSOCIATES (UK)
EasyEnglishTRANSLATION (Level B) Mary Read
LINGUISTIC CHECKER Sue Hunter
© 1999-2003, Wycliffe Associates (UK)
This publication is written in EasyEnglish Level B (2800 words).
May 2003
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