Why would Eliashib the priest have prepared a place in the
temple for Tobiah? They were related but he had to know that Tobiah had opposed
the rebuilding of the wall and had taken steps to try and stop the work. He had also to know that this wasn’t going to
be something Nehemiah could overlook, much less allow to happen. Perhaps, like when Moses was on the mountain
with God a little longer than the people believed would happen, the priest
concluded Nehemiah wasn’t coming back. The fact that a priest also moved the “grain
offering, the frankincense, the vessels, and the tithes of grain, wine, and
oil” which had been there in order to make room for this man is
unconscionable. Also during his absence,
they had neglected the service of the temple, withholding the portions of the
Levites and singers and the people were not keeping the Sabbath in order to continue
commercial activities. Nehemiah was
furious and took immediate action to restore things. Entropy in spiritual
things is the rule isn’t it? Someone has to maintain order or we will go back
to the old ways in short order.
It’s amazing how quickly the reaction in Jesus’ hometown to
His teaching went from astonishment to offense.
He had done great and amazing miracles and word had spread through the
region and you would think the hometown boy would be a hero but the problem is
that familiarity bred contempt. They
surely knew His story, Mary’s story, of the conception, but they clearly didn’t
believe it. They knew what they knew, who Jesus had been, who His family was,
and they couldn’t overcome that to believe.
Sometimes the greatest obstacle to faith is what we know to be true but
isn’t. That barrier is what Paul was
speaking of when he wrote the church in Rome that we must be transformed by the
renewing of the mind if we are to progress in not only faith but in being
conformed to the image of Christ. If
your worldview doesn’t allow for virgin birth and resurrection from the dead
and other miraculous things, you might believe Jesus is a great teacher but you
will never see Him as God incarnate, the savior of mankind. We need to be constantly in astonishment lest
we return to the old way.
The cosmic battle is already won. The child was born, the mother went into the
wilderness, to Egypt, for a time, the child protected from the wrath of Herod
until the right time to return. The
battle wasn’t only on earth, it was fought in heaven and satan and his angels
thrown out of that place but, unfortunately, down to the earth where he wreaks
havoc on those created in the image of God since the time of Jesus’ triumph at
the cross and the resurrection. We live
in a world where, as Peter wrote, we have an enemy who is always on the prowl,
looking for whom he may devour. We know
these things but do we have real room for them in our heads and hearts? How often we overlook the unseen spiritual
realities as though they were merely some comic book story. Indeed, we need a more robust spiritual
worldview, one that takes in more of the unseen things.
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