# the Bible or the Axe



## rmwilliamsjr (Aug 18, 2005)

book review-The Bible or the Axe
The Bible or the Axe: One Man's Dramatic Escape from Persecution in the Sudan (Paperback)
by William Levi as told by A.F.Chai

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...103-5640002-1269427?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

A copy of this book was given to me by blogforbooks dot com by Stacy Harp and provided by the author William Levi, my most grateful thanks to both for making me aware of the book and allowing me the opportunity to read it.

I received it Thursday night and read it Friday morning over coffee. Engrossed, subdued by the painfulness of the narrative, a little off the beaten track for me as it is a first person account of his life upto about 1993. But attracted to the snippets of reflection and theologizing that accompanies what is a straightforward tale of trust in God in the middle of a cruel war. Simply put God is good and is worthy of our trust but don't expect Him to be safe and protective from the unpleasantness of life and sin in this fallen world. Our battle is with the darkness of evil and with an evil one, who will who will crush and devour us if he is able to, the only security and hope is in the hands of God preserving us not from trials but from spiritual death and ultimate separation from Him.

Dear Mr. William Levi,

I am sorry to have read of not just your trials and wanderings but of the death and destruction of your people of Southern Sudan, not just for a short period of time but for several generations. I honestly can not explain your hopefulness and joy in the future except as a gift of God not just for your benefit but for ours as well. Materialism and a superabundance of toys has sapped the strength and vitality of the American church for any type of discipline or chastisement by the Lord. We expect God to be safe and to make us safe to continue to accumulate more while not only sharing little but understanding even less of how hard it is to claim the name of Christ in much of the world. The jolt that your book provides that here you are safe in America but spending all your time and energy on Operation Nehemiah when you could be enjoying yourself as do we, is as unwelcome as it is necessary.

I am sure that the energy and trust of God so evident in your book will continue to bring you true joy as it enables you to bring help to your countrymen and women who have suffered so much over the last 30 years. In your task i wish you the best of not successfulness but of Godliness and Goodness. Thank you for what must have been very difficult to share your life with strangers as you wrote this book.

sincerely,

We each have our own story to live out in this world. Some short and bitter, some like William's sad on the surface but joyful underneath. He is the descedent of Hebraic tribesmen who preserved the Hebrew faith in the Horn of Africa for 2 millennium and who became Messanic Christians with the first Western missionaries. But the ugliness of civil war based on religion, the jihad of extremeist Islamatists in Khartoum have killed 2 million and exiled 5 million of his Southern Sudanese countrymen. To retain one's faith at all in these circumstances is amazing, but to prosper, to thrive in the face of murderous and destructiveness of Shar'ia enforced at the point of an AK47 is simply a work of God. To escape from all this, to fight for a university engineering degree and go back to there to struggle is on the surface certifiably crazy behavior. But perhaps that is the final chapter, crazy for God's work is not irrational but trusting in the ultimate trustworthiness which even in death rescues the believer from the evil one's snares. Understanding this world not to be ultimate but preliminary gives a certainty and a trust that the secular and materialist can not comprehend but need belittle as the underminding of all they believe.

We fight on different fronts but it is the same battle, his faith and trust are good examples of how American Christians ought to hope in God's strong right arm and not their own. It is a gentle read, even breezy, worthwhile the time for anyone interested in either spiritual things or the battle between Islam and Christianity in Southern Sudan. It is not preachy but rather low keyed observations that ought not to put off even the secular reader, who has much to gain by understanding William's journey.

to some particulars:

While there is ideed a terrible physical battle going on, the heart of the battle is supernatural--and it has been raging there is the cradle of Eden since the fall of Adam. introduction.
I think this is one of the most important points of the book and one i am prone to forget. The primary battle is spiritual and is against the powers of darkness and evil.
It shows the strength of materialism in our society that the Church doesn't preach this near often enough nor with the passion that William Levi does here.

I learned the value of hard work, the importance of responsibility, and the necessity of obedience
pg 80. This is the kind of low keyed personal observations he makes, it is not a preaching book and it is suitable as a gift to an unbelieving friend, a big plus.

if you just have a few minutes in a bookstore to make up your mind about the book, read the chapter "New Friends" pg 80-89, the story about going to school on a load of cotton is the first time i teared up.

pg 116 the knowledge i gleaned was enough to keep me motivated why is it that the world can see education for what it is, yet my own kids distain the experience given to them? Perhaps working hard for something makes it sweeter than to be given it without personal effort? pg 124 with the flowering literacy came flowering spiritual growth a good reminder that we are people of the Book. His accent on education, even from primary school is a constant and consistent one.

His baptism and the question "The Bible or the Axe" around page 126 where he writes "Grandfather, though, knew from experience that some would die for their convictions, and he had been working to prepare his congregation for just such a possibility."

pg 136 "Arabic seemed to be the language of acceptance, intellect, and success, while English speakers were maginalized. The mosques seemed to be the home of the powerful and the elite, while Christian churches were poor and grudgingly tolerated." The battle between Islam and Christianity is perhaps one of the most important themes in the book.

Chapter 9 is titled Shari'a and ends with his torture and the understanding that he is free to worship God now that he is not afraid to die for his Faith. pg 162, my first note-wow of the book. From there you can feel that he has turned his attention to getting out of the Sudan in order to get an education that his society will not allow him. The beginning of his travels that end up in an engineering degree in the US. The book ends in 1993 and doesn't do a good job explaining his change of mind where he abandons his quest for a safe world and goes to start Operation Nehemiah to give back to his people in Southern Sudan. I'd like to see these time period expanded and the spiritual trials explained a bit more, my only criticism of the book.

So, it's natural audience is fence sitters, those exposed to the faith but uncertain of it's value in their lives. An excellent gift book and high school youth group discussion group material.
Thank you very much William Levi, both for the book and the testimony of your life, i look forward to hearing more about your mission-Operation Nehemiah and think the book an excellent way to introduce the work.


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