“Now there arose a great outcry of the people and of their
wives against their Jewish brothers.”
The reason for this isn’t immediately obvious. There was a famine in the land and what seems
to have been the case is that the people working on the wall had suffered
enough to mortgage their property in order to live, thus reducing themselves to
the level of bondservants of their own kinsmen who held the mortgages. Nehemiah
was angry because the mortgage holders were exacting interest from these
others, thereby further reducing them to poverty, and charging interest to
other Jews was strictly forbidden in the law.
Nehemiah calls them to account, church discipline, for their
transgression and, like Zacchaeus, the leaders repent and make
restitution. Nehemiah also tells us that
he sacrificed during the twelve years of his leadership, giving up his rights
as governor for a food allowance and, in addition, paying for the feeding of
150 others from his own pocket. Good leaders
show the way for others to follow.
How do we square the words of Jesus here with situations
like famines and other difficulties in life?
Do we simply say that we aren’t keeping the commandment to seek first
the kingdom and His righteousness if we suffer?
The promise is contingent on faith and faithfulness, so maybe that is
the issue, a failure on our part.
Suffering is actually a way God gets our attention but suffering in our
midst is a way of God bringing the church to its own self, calling forth a
communal response to suffering. The way
the Lord provides is sometimes through His people. In Nehemiah’s time, he was called upon to
answer the need and he called on others to do the same. Would you be surprised if I told you that all
the words translated “you” in this passage are plural pronouns? Jesus isn’t addressing people as individuals
here but the entire crowd as one. Our
culture values rugged individualism but is that a biblical view of life?
Paul’s intention is to leave and yet he still has much to
say to the people of Troas. In doing so,
he talks all night long. During his
talk, one young man, Eutychus, falls asleep and out the window and he
dies. Paul takes him up and in doing so
the young man’s life returns to him.
Afterwards, Paul speaks with the people until dawn. Paul was always concerned both with the
individual, look particularly at the last part of the letter to the church at
Rome to see how many people he addresses by name, and with the whole. Shepherds care for both the sheep and the
flock. We need to be able to see both
the forest and the trees.
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