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.
When the wall was completed, Nehemiah organized two choirs to go around the top of the wall in opposite directions, singing praises to God. When they met again, they joined together and went to the Temple to conduct a worship service dedicating the wall of Jerusalem. During the reading of the Law as part of this celebration, they discovered that the law said that no Ammonite or Moabite should be part of the assembly of God. At that point they excluded everyone of foreign descent from the assembly. This sounds harsh. However, there is some back-story.
Before this all happened, Nehemiah had needed to return to the court of Artaxerxes. When he returned to Jerusalem he discovered that the priest in charge of the Temple storerooms had converted one of them into a warehouse for Tobiah, one of the leaders of the neighboring peoples (and an opponent of the restoration of Jerusalem). Nehemiah also discovered that the Levites who were supposed to help conduct Temple services had not been given their allotment of food and had returned to working the fields rather than serving in the Temple. Nehemiah confronted the leaders over this and brought the Levites back. Further Nehemiah found the residents of Jerusalem conducting business on the Sabbath, both on their own and with non-Jewish merchants. He confronted them and demanded that they keep the Sabbath. Finally, he discovered that many Jewish men had married foreign women and had children with them and were not even teaching their children to speak Hebrew, instead raising them to speak the languages of their mother’s people. So, Nehemiah purged the people of foreign influences which were leading them away from God. The key factor in all of these things was that these foreign influences were leading the people to be unfaithful in following and worshiping God.
Today’s passage begins with Paul’s final comment on the topic he was discussing in yesterday’s passage: “And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ.” I have heard different expositions on this passage, but the one that strikes me today is a simple question. Do I imitate Jesus well enough that I can in good conscience suggest that others imitate me? That is quite the challenge, but I think it is the standard we are called to live up to. For me, the idea that others are measuring the validity of the Christian message by my behavior is scary enough, but the thought that someone might be attempting to model their Christian life on what I do comes close to giving me the screaming willies. I just don’t do that good of a job of imitating Christ. I guess that means one thing: Time to up my game!…And there is only one way to do that, give the Holy Spirit more control over my life.
Paul next says that men should not cover their head when praying or prophesying and that women should. People have argued about whether or not this passage is something that we should follow today. I am not inspired today to make a case for it one way or the other. I will merely say that I am inclined to believe that we should follow the instructions in this passage. For today, the Spirit is bringing another point to my attention. One which I do not believe we spend enough time looking at. In the middle of this teaching Paul tells us that in Christ women are not independent of men. And that men are not independent of women. Men and women fill different, but equally important, roles in the Body of Christ. All too many of the problems in our congregations result from us acting as if we are independent of each other. I had a lot of trouble composing that last sentence because I kept coming up with things that touched on issues addressed in other passages, most of which are somewhat controversial. I wanted to stick with the point I see here, that men are dependent on women and women are dependent on men. We need each other.
We can count on the Lord to fight our battles for us if we follow a few simple rules.
- Do not give our enemies cause to attack us
- Do not commit crimes of which to be accused
- Do good for all at every opportunity
- Mourn with those who suffer loss (rather than rejoicing in other’s misfortune)
If we do these things, God will give us victory over our enemies and humiliate those who attempt to harm us.
If we do not learn to delay gratification of our desires we will end up in poverty. If we spend our money on all of the luxuries we can afford, we will never accumulate much wealth.