Nehemiah the Imperfect

S: Nehemiah 13

O: Everyone is imperfect, but the book of Nehemiah points out Nehemiah’s imperfections a bit more starkly than most autobiographical books. It shows his insecurity, his intemperance, and his exclusionary attitude toward foreigners, 4 times he kept asking God to “remember me” (Nehemiah 5:19; 13:14, 22, 31) and various intemperate actions like beating people up and pulling out their hair (Nehemiah 13:25).

(Regarding his attitude toward foreigners: Nehemiah 13 uses sweeping reform language because Nehemiah was enforcing covenant separation from hostile and corrupting foreign influence. However, the wider witness of Scripture shows that this cannot mean the absolute exclusion of every Ammonite or Moabite who genuinely turned to Yahweh. Ruth had already demonstrated that covenant faith, not ethnic origin, determines membership among God's people. And his forcing the Jews who have married foreign wives, even those having children, to divorce them was later shown in 1 Corinthians 7:12-13 to be not the way Christ would want it.)

And yet, God remembered him and used him to further the kingdom of God.

A: Sometimes we become discouraged when we realise how imperfect we are. Yes, we should repent and get closer to the image of Christ. But we should not despair. Instead, let us continue to serve Him faithfully, trusting that He can use us despite our imperfections.

P: Father, thank You for Your grace. Help us to become more and more conformed to the image of Christ. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Reminders

S: Nehemiah 9

The Levites recapped what Yahweh had done for Israel up to that point, how God rescued them from Egypt, but then they went and made the golden calf, yet God took the next generation to the Promised Land. But even after entering the Promised Land, they repeatedly turned away from Yahweh. Though He sent prophets to warn them and call them back, they remained stubborn, so God judged them and allowed them to be taken into exile. Yet God did not abandon them. In His mercy He brought them back to their land.

O: This reminds me of Acts 7, where Stephen also recapped the history of God saving them, culminating in the very same Jesus that they had rejected.

I am also reminded of how in Deuteronomy, Moses recapped what God had done for them up to that point. (In fact, the Malay name for Deuteronomy in the Alkitab is Ulangan, which is the same word we use for reviewing what we have learned before an exam.) And many other places in the Old Testament, they build memorials here and there to remember what God had done, e.g. 1 Samuel 7 the story of Ebenezer.

A: We need to keep reminding ourselves of what God has done, because it is so easy for us to drift away and forget how He saved us. That’s why it’s so important to study the Bible regularly, to meet with other believers among whom the Word of God is taught. As Deuteronomy 6:7 says, “And you shall recite them to your children, and you shall talk about them at the time of your living in your house and at the time of your going on the road and at the time of your lying down and at the time of your rising up” and the same instructions are repeated in Deuteronomy 11:19.

P: Father, thank You for Your salvation that You have provided us through Jesus. Help me to keep reminding myself, my family, and my community of believers of Your truths and never forget Your blessings. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Marriage

 
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S: Ezra 10 

Ezra led the returning Jews to repent of marrying foreign women, and divorce their foreign wives, even those who already had children.

O: Even in the Old Testament, it’s clear that this is not a case of racism, but of faith. The problem with the foreign wives was not race or nationality – it was that they did not follow Yahweh. There are other examples in the Old Testament where foreigners follow Yahweh and God sanctioned them marrying in, e.g. Ruth.

However, the New Testament made it even clearer: 1 Corinthians 7:39 “A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord.” The phrase “in the Lord” shows that a Christian who is free to marry must marry someone who belongs to Christ.

Note that the New Testament also makes it clear that if you’re already married to an unbeliever, you are not to initiate a divorce. 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 “Now to the rest I say—not the Lord—if any brother has an unbelieving wife and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if any wife has an unbelieving husband and he consents to live with her, she must not divorce her husband. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the brother, since otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. But if the unbeliever leaves, let him leave. The brother or the sister is not bound in such cases. But God has called us in peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?”

A: While being married to a non-believer is a problem because of the spiritual disunity, it’s even worse to break up a marriage just because the spouse is not a believer. This is especially the case when there are already children. So, what Ezra led the returning Jews to do is not what we should do as New Testament believers.

If we’re not married yet, and we want to marry, we should marry a fellow-believer. The principle from 2 Corinthians 6:14 applies: “Do not become unevenly yoked with unbelievers, for what participation is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?” Although 1 Corinthians 6:14 is not specifically about marriage, but rather about partnerships in general, what more intimate partnership is there other than marriage? So, it also applies to marriage.

P: Father, strengthen our marriages. Give wisdom to our single brothers and sisters to find Godly spouses if they desire to marry. And help those who are already in “unequally yoked” marriages to be such a blessing to their family that they be drawn to You. As I am married to a fellow believer, I pray that I will also be a good husband; help me to love her as Christ loves the church and gave Himself up for her. In Jesus’ name, amen.

How should we treat “Samaritans”?

S: Ezra 4:1-4

Now the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple for Yahweh the God of Israel. And they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of the families, and they said to them, “Let us build with you. Like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to him from the days of Esarhaddon the king of Assyria who brought us up here. But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of the families of Israel said to them, “It is not for you but for us to build a house for our God. For we ourselves alone will build it for Yahweh the God of Israel, just as Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”

Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed officials against them to frustrate their plan for all the days of Cyrus king of Persia until the reign of Darius king of Persia.

O: This was a major step in the increase of the enmity between the Jews and the people who would be eventually known as Samaritans, to the point that by Jesus’ time, they would have nothing to do with each other. There may already have been some prejudice before that due to the fact that the Samaritans had a syncretistic form of Yahweh worship, but it certainly got a lot worse in Ezra’s time. Praise the Lord that Jesus then overcame this with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:1-42. The Samaritans came to Christ in droves as a result of that.

Because of the enmity between the Jews and Samaritans that started with Ezra above, many Jews when travelling from Judea to Galilee would actually cross over the Jordan to Perea, and travel on the east side of the Jordan till they got far enough north to cross back over to Galilee. Jesus did not do that. He deliberately travelled through Samaria and germinated the Samaritan revival.

It may have been after that Samaritan revival that Luke 9:51–56 records some Samaritans not welcoming him because he was headed for Jerusalem – the Samaritans’ own prejudices against Jews reared its ugly head. James and John, the “Sons of Thunder” as Jesus called them in Mark 3:17, in their hot-headedness, wanted to call down fire from heaven to destroy them, but Jesus rebuked them for it.

Then, not long after that, Jesus in Luke 10:25-37 makes a Samaritan the hero of the story in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Then in Luke 17:11-19 we see the healing of the ten lepers, where only the Samaritan comes back to thank Jesus. And finally in Acts 1:8, just before He gets taken up into heaven, Jesus commands His disciples to witness to Samaria as part of the Great Commission.

The result of all this was a reconciliation between at least the Christian Jews and the Christian Samaritans. Acts 8 tells the continuing story where Philip went to another city in Samaria and led many to Christ there, and Peter and John laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

A: We are surrounded by people who do not believe in Christ. Some of them are hostile to our faith. We might have prejudices against them, just like the Jews had towards Samaritans. Jesus calls us to show them His love, rather than hostility. Even as we hold firmly to Christ, we must show His mercy to all.

Related to this, see The Parable of the Good Muslim.

P: Father, help me to always be a good ambassador for Christ, and to show people Jesus’ love. Help me to overcome any prejudices I may have. In Jesus’ name, amen.