Nehemiah
Nehemiah was a contemporary of Ezra and the prophet Malachi and the events that happened in Nehemiah take place about twelve years after the events we read about in Ezra.
Walls and Gates
When Nehemiah first hears about the facts that the walls of the city of God were broken down, he is terribly distressed and prays and fasts for four months before risking his life to go into the presence of the king with a sad countenance and to ask the king for a favour. When Nehemiah finally gets to Jerusalem, rebuilding the walls and the gates is exactly what he is anxious to do. The walls and the gates of God’s city - of the church - are very important. There needs to be high walls that distinguish the church from the world; if the walls are broken down it results in a loss of distinction between church and world. There also have to be gates - open but guarded gates. Open for people to come in and enjoy God’s salvation but guarded as it is not just for anybody – only for those who are willing to repent and live according to God’s values. There are to be walls of distinction and the open gates of salvation.
We see in Nehemiah a great example of leadership. He leads by encouraging the people’s spirits and vision, maintaining their motivation and their unity, by administering the work of God effectively and by dealing with opposition wisely and courageously. Opposition comes in many forms - mockery, conspiracy, threats and intimidation. But under his leadership, despite this opposition, the work is completed in just fifty two days.
Building and Battling
The work of building the walls and battling with those who oppose the work give us a enlightening picture of the Christian life. The Christian life, in many ways, is about building and battling - building our lives on rock and defeating the schemes of the enemy. Building the church of God also involves both building and battling an enemy who would seek to oppose it. Thankfully we have the encouragement that Jesus will build his church and hell itself will not prevail against it (Mattthew 16:18). This idea of both building and battling is captured very well in the way that those who were building had the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other.
Covenant Living
In the second part of Nehemiah we see again Ezra’s passionate teaching, as he teaches the people of God how God wants them to live. If the first part had been about the reconstructing of the walls and the establishing of civil government, this second part is about the moral and spiritual restoration of the people. Ezra expounds the law passionately and there is an emotional response to it. Part of his teaching involves recounting the nation’s history. It is important for those who are pursuing a destiny to know their history. It is important for those who are wanting to build for the future to know something of their past.
Ezra is also involved in helping the people to renew their covenant and the ethical issues that he addresses are ways of expressing that covenant commitment to God - as is their unity, which also concerns him. After Nehemiah’s brief departure and his return we see him disciplining the people of God severely, again showing the importance of covenant living. He wants them to be committed to the house of God. He establishes the Sabbath, because it is an expression of faith, of trusting God, and he deals with the issue of inter-marriage because it is an issue of the purity of God’s people. All of these are important in building the church of God.
This background was written by Trevor Lloyd, lead elder of Community Church Huddersfield, and the founder of the Bible Tour.