We talked about Nehemiah’s “great work” yesterday. He was rebuilding the walls of the city of God. He called it “a great work.” Because it was a great work, he told his distractors, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.” I cannot come down. Nehemiah knew better than many of us, that sticking […]

Nehemiah was leading a team that was rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem. 24 centuries ago, this meant a lot of heavy lifting.  It also meant, as it would mean now, a lot of intimidation from the people who would lose influence when the walls had gates to keep them out. They were mostly bullies, these […]

Back to Nehemiah. Because I’m reading and rereading, patterns start to show up for me. One pattern is Nehemiah’s mixture of praying and doing. Lots of people who follow God pray and do nothing, waiting for a miracle or a voice from heaven. Others do something and don’t pray, assuming that God may not be […]

I’m reading Nehemiah these days. I’m preparing a teaching series. I want to give you a couple glimpses. Briefly, Nehemiah was Jewish, was living in exile from Israel along with most of the Jewish population. Some people were left in Israel or had migrated back there. He was working in the king’s palace as a […]

The third chapter of Nehemiah is a slow chapter to read. The book itself is about a project to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and to rebuild the identity of the people who live there. This chapter is a list of who built what section. Here’s a taste: Eliashib the high priest and his fellow priests […]