I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
Nehemiah was serving in the court of Artaxerxes as the king’s cup-bearer when his brother and several other men visited him after taking a trip to Jerusalem. Nehemiah asked how things were going in Jerusalem and his visitors told him that it was not going well, the wall was torn down and the gates destroyed. Nehemiah was heartbroken at this news, so he began to fast and pray. He admitted his sins, and the sins of his family and his people. He asked God to remember His promise to restore His people when they turned back to Him. Finally, he asked God to make the king favorable to him and grant him his request.
At some point during his fast Nehemiah appeared before the king looking sad. Nehemiah had never before appeared sad before the king and the king asked him about this change in demeanor. Nehemiah was terrified, but nevertheless summoned the courage to tell the king that he was sad because of the state of Jerusalem. The king asked Nehemiah how he could help him. Nehemiah replied by requesting that the king send him to Judah to rebuild Jerusalem. The king asked him how long he would be gone and, when Nehemiah answered, granted his request. Nehemiah followed that up by requesting letters to the governors of the province west of the Euphrates allowing him to travel through their territory unmolested to Jerusalem and a letter to the overseer of the king’s foresters instructing him to provide Nehemiah with timber for the work. The king granted this request and sent a military escort with Nehemiah. Despite the letters from the king, two of the officials in the areas around Judah were upset that Nehemiah had arrived to work on rebuilding Jerusalem.
I never noticed this before, but during the time when Nehemiah was fasting and praying before he appeared before the king he was doing more than fasting and praying. He was making plans. When he appeared before the king he had his plans all made, so that when the king asked him how long he would be gone on this project, he knew the answer. This is an important lesson for us. While we are praying and seeking God’s support for our course of action, we should be planning what we will do if and when God grants us that support. It would not have been enough for Nehemiah to have spent that time down on his knees praying to God, “Please cause the king to approve my going to Jerusalem to rebuild it.” He wisely spent some of that time planning what he would do if the king granted his request.
When Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, he spent several days settling in before telling anyone why he had come. He then slipped out of the city at night and made a survey of Jerusalem’s defenses. In the morning Nehemiah addressed the various leaders of Jerusalem. He summarized the results of his survey, acknowledging that the leaders were well aware of what he had found, and proposed that they begin rebuilding the wall. He told them about his conversation with the king and the support the king had given him for the project. The leaders were enthusiastic about the project.
When several of the officials of surrounding areas(Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem) heard what the Jews were doing they suggested that rebuilding the walls was rebellion. Nehemiah replied that God was with them and that these men (Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem) had no share or claim (legal or historical) on Jerusalem. Various family groups began working on sections of the walls and gates of Jerusalem.
In today’s passage Paul addresses an issue that was apparently raised in a letter the Corinthians had sent to him. He begins by saying that it is good to abstain from sexual relations. However, because society puts such an emphasis on sexual activity and assumes sexual immorality as the norm, it is good for most people to be married. Those who are married should meet the sexual needs of their spouse (husbands filling the sexual needs of their wives and wives filling the sexual needs of their husbands). Married couples should strive to regularly be sexually intimate, only occasionally abstaining when they have agreed to do so as part of a specified period of praying and fasting.
Paul says that he wishes everyone was single, as he was, but that not everyone is given the gift to be able to live like that. He recommends that those who are not married, or are widowed remain single. However, he encourages those who feel they cannot control their sexual urges to get married. He then gives a command from God. Those who are married are to stay married with their current spouse. If they do separate, they should remain single, or get back together. He continues by saying that in the case where a Christian is married to an unbeliever the Christian should stay with their unbelieving spouse because perhaps the spouse will come to know the Lord through the Christian’s witness. However, if the unbelieving spouse leaves the Christian, the Christian is no longer bound to the unbelieving spouse (Paul seems to be teaching that if someone who is married becomes a Christian and their spouse does not and that unbelieving spouse divorces them, it is OK for this new Christian to remarry).
I would like to add to this that when Paul discusses a believer staying with an unbelieving spouse, I concluded that he was talking about someone who became a Christian after being married. I reached this conclusion because elsewhere Paul tells us that we should not be unequally bound.
Today’s psalm is summed up by the first verse.
you have stored up for those who fear you.
You lavish it on those who come to you for protection,
blessing them before the watching world.
The psalmist tells us that even when it appears that we are cut off from God, He hears our cries for help and will come to our aid. If we put our hope in God, we will not be disappointed.
I read this proverb in the New Living Translation (NLT) and thought, “This is interesting.” The NLT translation says that being proud and arrogant is as much sin as taking evil actions and therefore just as bad. That certainly is consistent with what I read elsewhere in the Bible.
However, when I looked at the NIV, this proverb reads to say that being proud and arrogant leads one to commit sins. There is certainly truth to that as well.