Nehemiah 5:14-7:73
Following on his discussion of the problems that resulted from the wealthy Jews taking advantage of the misfortune of the poor Jews, Nehemiah writes that, unlike previous governors, during his twelve years as governor he never drew the governor’s food allowance. Nehemiah accuses his predecessors of putting a heavy burden on the people with even their assistants taking advantage of the people. Nehemiah says that he acted this way because he feared God. Nehemiah dedicated himself to working on rebuilding the wall, requiring his servants to spend time working on the wall as well. Nehemiah spent from his own resources to fulfill his duty as governor to host officials and visiting dignitaries. He did this because he felt that the burden on the people to rebuild the wall was all that they could bear and the added burden of supporting him and his officials would have been too much for the people.
When the enemies of the Jews among the surrounding peoples found out that Nehemiah had completed the walls around Jerusalem, they attempted to lure him to a meeting where they could ambush him. Nehemiah refused to accede to a meeting with them offering as an excuse that he was busy with his work and saw no benefit in such a meeting. They sent him four such invitations. When they realized that he would not meet with them voluntarily, they attempted to blackmail him. They claimed that they had evidence that he was planning to set himself up as king in Jerusalem and that if he did not meet with them they would send this evidence to the king of Persia. When this did not work, they hired an invalid that Nehemiah visited to try to convince Nehemiah to shut himself up in the Temple over night to avoid an attack. Nehemiah recognized that shutting himself up in the Temple to avoid an attack while leaving the rest of the population vulnerable would destroy his credibility. He chose instead to trust in the defenses of the city.
It took the people 52 days to rebuild the walls under Nehemiah’s leadership. During the time spent rebuilding the laws, many of the leaders among the Jews were telling Nehemiah what a wonderful man Tobiah (one of the leaders of the surrounding peoples who opposed rebuilding the walls) was. At the same time, they were reporting to Tobiah everything they knew about Nehemiah’s plans. Meanwhile Tobiah kept sending Nehemiah threatening letters to try to intimidate him. It is never spelled out in this account, but the reason that these attempts to thwart Nehemiah failed was because Nehemiah had a personal relationship with Artaxerxes who was then the king of Persia. Which shows how God’s hand was at work here. If someone without Nehemiah’s connections in the court of Persia had attempted this, they would have been thwarted. But God chose Nehemiah for this task and Nehemiah had both the connections and the dedication to God to complete it. When the walls were finished, Nehemiah turned over responsibility for governing Jerusalem to his brother, Hanani, along with specific instructions on maintaining the defenses of the city.
Nehemiah noted that the population of the city was small and the houses within the city had not yet been rebuilt. This led him to decide to call together the leaders and the common people to register who was living in the city. He had found a record of the people who had first returned to Jerusalem from Exile and records that information here.
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Paul now addresses the question they had sent him about food offered to idols. It appears that the question had been couched in a manner so as to elicit the answer they wanted from Paul by starting out with something along the lines of, “We all know…” Paul replies to this by saying that, “Yes, we all know some things.” And that knowledge makes us feel important. However, love is what builds the Church. The person who is convinced that knowing the answers is what is important does not yet understand what matters. What matters is loving God. Being right is less important than showing our love of God and our fellow believers.
Having said that, Paul begins to address their question. He starts out by saying that idols are not really gods. There is only one God. He points out that nevertheless some people worship a multitude of gods and lords. Paul tells us that we as Christians know that there is only one God, who created everything, and we live for Him.
However, Paul points out that not all believers have come to this understanding yet. Some believers still believe in the power and existence of the gods that they worshiped before they came to the Lord. If they eat of food offered to idols, it is an act of worship to those idols. Paul points out that we gain nothing spiritually from not eating food offered to idols, but we, also, gain nothing spiritually from eating it. Therefore since some other believers might consider eating meat offered to idols to be idol worship and if they see a believer they look up eating such meat they might be led to do the same, we should not eat such food. If we, who know that idols are nothing and can eat meat offered to idols without worshiping the idols, are seen eating meat offered to idols, a believer who still struggles with believing in the power of idols might be led to return to worshiping idols. This argument applies in other areas besides meat offered to idols, which we have little exposure to in the U.S.. We need to be sensitive to the weaknesses of faith that other believers around us suffer from. Whether that is taking care about drinking alcohol around those who struggle with alcoholism, or in exercising some other freedom we have in Christ in front of a believer who struggles with temptation in that area. We must be careful not to lead a fellow believer to stumble and fall.
Psalm 33:1-11
The psalmist tells us that those who love the Lord should be joyful and sing praises to God. We should use whatever instruments come to hand to produce music to praise God and not be afraid to write new songs that reflect out experience of Him. He tells us that creating the world was effortless for God, as easy for Him as breathing is for us. God’s plans will come to fruition, no matter who or what stands in their path.
Proverbs 21:8-10
The first proverb today tells us that the guilty are devious, but the innocent are straightforward. This is a warning. If you are dealing with someone with whom everything seems to corkscrew through all kinds of hard to follow permutations, be suspicious of their intentions. On the other hand, someone who is straightforward and forthright can be trusted.
The second one tells us that it is better to live in poverty with little, than to be wealthy and live with a wife who quarrels all the time. I thank God every day that the latter is not my lot in life.
The third one tells us that if you know someone who is constantly plotting to cause unpleasantness for others, stay away from them because they will soon target you.
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.