3. Ezra/Nehemiah - Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

all right did you solve the solve all the problems about in her marriage and yeah good it's good so just move on no no we can't do that responsibly okay so we we're at this issue of the opposition if this is the goal rebuild people's identity and he's an expert in the Bible that's gonna play a key role but he hits on this issue and is similar it's about the the boundary lines of the Covenant people and they are they're porous in the sense of up to this point it's been about who you worship not what your ethnicity is although predominantly it's been tied to the people of Israel but there's been lots of non-israelites in on the party and ezra makes this move this interpretive move he sees the boundary lines threatened he thinks he discerns that this could mean the end of the covenant people as a distinct people and so he sets in motion a pretty clear and some would say severe boundary line that he makes it about race and marriage so what do we appropriate here and as I've read lots of different commentators and people reflecting on this there's one the no stone unturned history nerd Hugh Williamson from the fad commentary that I didn't necessarily recommend but I've cut and pasted his summary conclusions here and I never just like bad pedagogy I almost never do this like read someone else's notes but they're really helpful and all at least I'll just kind of read and summarize but I'm gonna let him walk us through this issue because he could do it better than I could just talking how it gets with me I'm also aware of the fact that this is the food coma part of how these things go which is food and our bellies mix a little sleepy so I'll try and be aware of that where we're rockin till what's reads 33 something three o'clock okay got it right so here's Hugh is a fantastic Anglican British scholar was an amazing fellow the treatment described in these two chapters of how Azra tackled the problem of mixed marriages is among the least attractive parts of ezra nehemiah let's just be honest if not the whole Old Testament responsibility dictates that we should endeavor first to understand the reasons that justified it in the participants own eyes before we go on to evaluate it in light of Scripture as a whole so he's saying let's put ourselves sympathetically and I you know just personally when I remember the first time I read the story the first thing I'm thinking about is well what happened to these women children but are instantly right and that's a very natural question to ask it's actually the question that most modern readers ask but it's precisely because we live in a culture where group identities are expendable for the most part group identities aside from like your family are mostly voluntary you remember at your church you remember at Costco to you know you remember it's just kind of like are you with me so we are living a culture that's fairly unique as far as I'm aware in the history of the human race that has diminished group identities that transcend the your actual family and we're still discovering the effects that's having on the sociological level so that's for sure a big part of what's going on here and that in their cultural setting was the main focus so anyway I'm starting let's just just ahem say sorry okay here we go the Jewish community in Judah and Jerusalem to which as returned found itself in an ambivalent situation trapped between a political and a religious sense of identity the Edict of artaxerxes our Xerxes that provided Ezreal with his mandate was intended to encourage the development of Judaism as a religious community remember he got go reorganize and think there's Persian interests here they want to stabilize the Empire so that they last longer than the Babylonians did which was about a century so Paul Persian policy was let all of these people groups have their own local leaders rebuild their ancient religious identities appoint their own priests and and they'll be much happier when they have to pay us heavy taxes every year that was their philosophy and so Azra came sent by this policy to rebuild a religious ethnic community which was somewhat different than the shape of the Israelite Kingdom in the land in the period before the exile so he's encouraged to develop Judaism as a religious community a being so the qualifications for membership in this new Israel had to be redefined otherwise there was or there was felt to be a danger that the distinctive elements of the Jewish faith would be watered down perhaps beyond the point of recognition by assimilation to surrounding cultures so this danger was heightened by the economic power welded by some of those who are here labeled the peoples of the lands so think think about this during the Exile so many many families are forced off their land to go into Babylon and this just land there for the taking for people to buy up in their absence during the Exile foreign landlords had apparently assumed control of a good deal of the territory and the difficult economic circumstances that the returned exiles faced could have placed them at the mercy of their powerful neighbors against all of this he has five points that I find really helpful and I think they will help give you some handles on how to teach these the story in your own setting so first Mosaic law was by now a constitutional foundation for this community and lo and behold there's no direct guidance about the central issue that Ezra had to face are you with me so the peoples of the land what do we do in this situation than the Israelite Kingdom in the Canaanites so we've never faced this this problem before so in consequence he taught and the community accepted an interpretation of the law according to its spirit as he understood it and and we I kind of had to go over it quickly but if you this little chart here where I just go through as resulting 'kz to the passages that he's adopting language from and you can just see it he's making a move that saying the ancient Canaanites and the way that our ancestors related to them is what we need to read opt in this moment now with these people who aren't Canaanites but the tendency to lose our identity because of these religious practices that could infiltrate us so he does what he does you can just see it at work in the passages that he quotes okay so he did an interpretation of those laws according to the spirit we may not agree with certain aspects of Ezra's interpretation but his motivation and his method remain ones that we would acknowledge his valid today do you see the point that he's making so in life so we have the teachings of Jesus on marriage he had a very high view of marriage and we actually have directions from Jesus and the Apostles that I think would compel us to say what ezra nehemiah may have been right in that moment that is not what followers of Jesus that's not how we're supposed to respond to a similar circumstance divorce namely so but the idea that we need to constantly be facing new cultural settings that raise new problems that Paul orgies didn't directly address so what do you do you have to interpret the Bible according to its spirit so we adopt the practice of Ezra of reading and trying to think about what are similar circumstances we find ourselves in today that allow us to take Scripture from the past and apply it in today so look what he says next he says we've noted in connection to the list of people who divorce their wives in chapter 10 that only the leadership of the community was involved in these proceedings so it's mainly the leaders of the community the survival of the whole stood no chance at all if the center became soft and then this is interesting statement that I found helpful Israel's election was never merely for her own comfort but so that she might shine as a witness to the nation's for God and his standards and he quotes here the calling of Abraham yea I'll bless you make you a great nation covenant people so that you can become a blessing to the nation's this point is that Israel maintaining its identity to be a blessing to the nation's can't be achieved without maintaining a distinctive self-identity and this was thought to be threatened by these marriages if you go read the hyperlink of this story in Malachi 2 which seems to be a contemporary text in some cases that when Malachi is the famous line for malachi about divorce i hate divorce says the Lord your God so what kinds of divorce is Malachi opposing and some people think that he's actually opposing the decree of Ezra there are other people that think what he's opposed it what Malachi is opposing is all of the the events that took place leading up to these intermarriages namely that these Israelite men the voice divorced their Israelite wives and remarried the people of the land and that that's what Malachi is talking about and that's williamson's view so even though it's not mentioned here knowledge of this fact may have reduced the sympathy for the majority of the families concerned in other words again we read as rheton we think what about the women and the children and what williamson saying is in light of malachi - we should also be thinking what about the Israelite wives who were divorced before they were remarry you with me here on that one it also serves to remind us that divorce was in any case regarded as in a rather different light than it is today when the church has his expectations of marriage raised by GS s highest amasian here's another interesting thing Ezra didn't impose his solution from above whose solution was it you remember that guys check an ayah and then all the people agree in Ezra's like yeah I think that's what needs to happen so he may in the meantime have been teaching them his interpretation of the law but the initiative for response comes from the community itself that seems to be a significant detail in the story finally it should be noted that no indication is given of what provision may have been made for these divorce families the women in the children and that's simply because the concerns of the narrative why elsewhere but this happens all the time a biblical narrative right where the question gets raised the story raises some question that you are like surely this is the question everybody's asking why doesn't the story ever talk about it why didn't God accept Cain's offering it seemed to be a perfectly good are you with me and it's just the narrative has a different agenda and so it just doesn't sum why did Moses did get disqualified you know for striking the rock instead of speaking to the rock really it's kind of harsh yeah you know and it's just the agenda the purpose of that story isn't to answer your questions it's to make a point that's very different than the point that you and I might be looking for and so this is another one of those stories which is the main thing that given our social the thing that we ask is exactly the thing that's not the priority here so what he goes on to say is essentially this that up to this point identity and membership in the covenant community had been about religious allegiance what God do you worship and he says he thinks that's the main takeaway that we still as followers of Jesus need to hear today that this this ambiguity of your neighbors within when you do the Covenant people of God how you relate to your neighbors you can't just drop a lot of heaven about that every generation and every culture there's going to be different dynamics you have to navigate and there are some times when you when the church needs to pull in Ezra and do things that will be viewed as unfriendly as intense or severe but sometimes the identity of God's covenant people is truly at stake and so a severe decision or an intense decision needs to be made and welcome to every single generation of church history right really so it's just the circumstances and the hot topics differ but there's never been a generation without their hot topic boundary line issues and it's good to remember that because we tend to think that the ones of our own generate the generation we happen to be living in we tend to think of as the like the worst of the most intense form are you with me and so obviously all kinds of things in our culture about sexuality gender the nature of the family the nature of human communities all this plural is religious pluralism and there we have to do the same thing we have to do the same thing Ezra did is discern do it as a community consult all of the scriptures that we have for him that was the Torah and go for it and the results will likely be anticlimactic as they were for Ezra but what more can we hope for the side of the new creation you know what I'm saying is we have to discern what it means to be faithful and then do it and we're probably wrong about however much percentage about it but we just be humble are you with me it's just there you go there you go this one's pretty clear and I think if you're teaching this in a community of Jesus's followers you have to mention this in the most analogous situation in which a Christian is ever likely to find themselves namely married to an unbelieving partner the New Testament but any means the Apostles explicitly rule out divorce as an available option in other words if I'm married to somebody who's not a follower of Jesus Paul the Apostle really clearly said to the church in Corinth yeah don't divorce don't leave the marriage that's a bad idea you guys know that passage it's a very important passage yeah so in 1st Corinthians 7 first Peter 3 rather they encourage a lifestyle a by the believer of such a manner that could win compendium compelling to win this person to person over when this person over so here's his kind of conclusion and I'll stop I'll stop reading his notes after this so nevertheless concentration on the narrow racist aspects of this passage should not blind us to the more general biblical teaching that for a believer to enter marriage with an unbeliever is likely both to endanger his or her faith and to weaken the marriage since they cannot share together those things which one partner most holds dear this was the intention of those original laws about intermarriage in the Torah and that remains true for the Christian as well he quotes Paul's lying about being unequally yoked so does at the core does this story hold a message that's a really important thing to talk about in your church community it totally is it just requires homework and there are some classes or sermons we have to work harder than others to be super clear so that you're not misunderstood and this will be one of them this will be one of them and to kind of give the background of the story their stories like this where in our mod in our particular cultural setting some stories just make everybody angry and then they shut the audience they shut the people in our churches down from being able to hear the really important thing happening there the story of Saul and the Amalekites is another one of these where the whole thing is about his self-deception he thinks he's obeying God when he's not and that's such a incredibly profound thing to talk about but the whole thing is that he didn't kill all of the Amalekites there's like oh yeah and really like that had to be the story for that point and so you have to you have to first you have to do a whole thing on the Canaanite thing before you can get to the and so that's okay that's just the hard work you have to do as a Bible teacher but and it's worth doing so there is something to it where I'm gonna say here however you want to introduce Azra yeah I don't know if that's a separate teaching or not but I'm just gonna call this a boundaries issue the boundaries of the covenant people there are times where those boundaries need to be really porous and open towards people who aren't don't give their allegiance and there are other times where the boundaries need to be really clear and the Spirit will be the one to guide different leaders and church communities to make the right decision in their particular context hey guys hey guys doing I mean I know that's I'm trying to tie up with a bow something that's hard to tie up with a bow but I'm doing I'm doing my best Derrick Kidner and Ferrante it also have really good discussions but I liked I liked Williams too okay should we keep going okay hi yeah yeah hmm well I know it yeah yeah it's it's the first if this one kind of made us ambiguous about the enemies and how they said no to those people and then generated the conflict this one is really anticlimactic where it's like whoa what happened next like what was the and it could be a few things it could be the the author who's got us a set of source documents in front of in front of him and it could be he just doesn't have a source for what aftermath was that's actually the view Williamson has and that could be the case I feel like this a little disappointing for the literary ninjas right to leave it hanging just because we couldn't find source material on what happened next so my hunch is that they're sowing the seeds of them the ambiguity that each one of these kind of ends with a huh preparing us for the big huh at the end of the book right so that's my that's my view and we're back to that thing of even everybody had good intentions here and the end result was kind of a mixed bag which that's like life you know both as individuals and in our church communities isn't it often that way and but to me that's part of the realism of the story yeah hmm oh well it's not among it's not in the wisdom books in the sense it's not connected to Solomon or the wisdom tradition it's in this third section of the writings and actually the way Daniel Ezra Nehemiah and Chronicles work together as a little triad is actually pretty important for how the Tanakh concludes and I'll say a few words about that before the end of the day because it's the ski jump at the end of the hill so but it's not technically or it's never been associated with the wisdom books as such yeah as a short answer we can talk more about that afterwards if you want to know more okay so we're cruising forward dude did nehemiah one through seven oh my gosh so it's the third third cycle of a leader commissioned by the king of Persia he goes to Jerusalem on his mission and here it's to rebuild the city and the walls and to repopulate city he meets opposition and then overcomes it so first of all this is a throng of eight pointed this out that he thinks the whole of one through seven this is well-crafted symmetry and I was a little skeptical because I was like really that's a really and so I took this one to the bank and did this looked at it all from top to bottom and it's really true like it's really remarkable that the stories at the beginning matched precisely this their corresponding stories like right on down the line and it goes right here to the middle the two middle stories both share this extremely rare Hebrew word that's only used in these two waise and these stories right here and this is often when the literary ninjas are constructing a story like this as a symmetry they'll often make the most overt verb a to use keywords that show you that that's what's happening in the middle of stories because they're the closest together and then once you notice it I think their strategy is you're just reading first and you're just like oh yeah that's oh oh can we get yeah here we go so when you're reading up here and you don't know that there is a cool literary symmetry going on you're just reading the story and you're like oh why does that story occur here what does that have to do with that and then once you get in here and you're like oh weird there's a prayer right here and a prayer right here and why did these two stories use that word oh wait Oh what what's going on and then you finish it and then what you're forced to do is go reread it again and be like is that what's happening yes yeah and so you get out here and Nehemiah's brother Hanani like he plays no role in the narrative except that he's just mentioned randomly just in the opening story and just in the closing story here and anyway it's really really remarkable how this section works but there's a few themes here about nehemiah that I think are worth honing in on I'll just talk about them and then I'll kind of throw out some ideas for maybe some classes or sermon ideas from Nehemiah first of all there's all these hyperlinks if Ezra was the new Moses there's all these hyperlinks between Nehemiah and Joshua so think you've got the Moses and Joshua connection where you know Moses led the people through the the sea that parted and so on he anoints Joshua with the same spirit and then what is Joshua going to do because he also lead the people through the water he does does he also have an encounter with the angel of the Lord where he has to take off his sandals they both did there's all these really intentional pairings of Moses and Josh when you get into the book of Kings and you read the stories of Elijah and Elijah it's the same thing going on where Elijah does Elijah also go to Mount Sinai does he also encounter God and wind and fire and yeah it's really brilliant and then there's this moment where he gives Elijah like the double portion of the Spirit and then real quick Elijah crosses the Jordan and then Elijah crosses it again right after that so you have this Moses and Joshua thing going on with them with Elijah and Elijah and then the book of Ezra Nehemiah is also giving you this pair so if Ezra was a new Moses Nehemiah becomes this new Joshua and so he has this opening prayer we'll talk about the opening scene more in just a second but he has this opening prayer when he hears about the walls of Jerusalem he has this incredibly beautiful prayer and it's just a copy and paste from the last couple chapters of Deuteronomy it's just this beautiful prayer you can tell his mind's been saturated in the Torah just like Joshua was was called to do there once he gets into the city of Jerusalem if you look at the this is the outline of the story you see all these little double stars all of those represent what I'm calling reports of opposition and there's it's seven times were NEMA is in the city and we'll hear sorry I'll just show you one here's the first one when sanballat the hora night and tobiah the ammonite official heard that Nehemiah had come to town it was very displeasing in their eyes and then they build up their opposition where is the next one 2:19 but when sunbeh la hora night and tobiah the ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it then they mocked us and despised us and are you rebelling I it's the king for one now it came about when sunba lout heard that we were rebuilding the wall he became furious and very angry and mock are you what you get it so when so-and-so heard that this was happening then they responded with some form of opposition can you guess just guess how many times that little saying appears in the nehemiah story this seven count of up seventh right did eight seven Whitakers seven and it occurs precisely adjusted in every other story pace right on through and what's interesting is that this is precisely the same phrase that punctuates the story of Joshua and the Canaanites in the book of Joshua so Joshua enters into the land and they haven't they haven't all they did was cross the Jordan and Joshua five begins now when all the kings of the aam rights beyond the sea heard how they had dried up the waters their hearts melted joshua nine is after Jericho when all the kings who were beyond the Jordan in the lowland heard of what the Israelites were doing they gathered himself to make war do so through you guys with me do I need to say anymore it's brilliant that's brilliant so it's a very small technique on the author's part but you can just see it's a part of his strategy for depicting nehemiah as a new joshua and then in the Braveheart speech of nehemiah he has a Braveheart moment where like Samba lot and Tobiah they they launched this rumor that they're going to do this like secret Knight attack on Jerusalem and all the people are afraid to work on the wall anymore and so he it says he stood up on the wall he got everybody's attention Braveheart moment and this is it it's a Nehemiah 4:14 is the Braveheart speech and it's a quotation from Joshua's speech to the people and a quotation from Moses's words about what Joshua is to do once they get into the land so come on I mean you guys he's the new Joshua what the what more do you just you just need him to write it on the page right so they have they did it this way so you've got so once again it's the same thing it's every generation sees itself is playing out some chapter of the biblical drama that's awesome here's something about these stories that really struck me just in this round in the last few weeks of reading and thinking about them preparation for today and it's the Nehemiah story gives us a realistic portrayal of the internal life of a leader and it's actually when you look up when you googled me Ezra Nehemiah leadership principles it's usually actually the Nehemiah story the people appeal to and that's because he's really inspiring actually what he goes through how he discerns this divine call on his life and the things that happen the obstacles he faced the leadership strategies that he used it's really he's wise he's a good leader and even though I don't think this is the books of Ezra Nehemiah are a handbook on how to do your next building campaign okay all right so don't use the book for that at the same time as a character I think you and I are supposed to learn from him and reflect and meditate on how he led people through a very traumatic time of crisis where once again seem like their identity was at stake and everything was lost and how he navigates people through it's really it's really an inspiring story so if you're gonna do the Nehemiah story in two parts one of them I think should somehow be like a character study and I just have a few few thoughts in the notes here a character study on nehemiah and the opening of his story it's really dramatic and awesome this just from the opening opening paragraph the words of Nehemia Nehemia ah okay sorry I'm getting ahead myself Nehemia this is so nehemiah in Hebrew now hem yeah now that yah at the end is always a shortened form for Yahweh and him is from the Hebrew noun comfort so it's either comfort of Yahweh or comfort Yahweh is comfort but comfort comfort yeah now come on knock the moon and then who arrives to bring Nakhla move to Jerusalem Nehemia Nehemia brings not come you get it this is me it's good it's really good yeah this is how biblical names work didn't say in the Old Testament so the words of Yahweh is comfort the son of Kolya it happened in the month of Kislev in the 20th year I was in Susa the capital and Hanani one of my brothers and some men of Judah came and you know I asked them how how are all those judyann's that returned led they left they went back to Jerusalem how are those guys doing the ones who escaped and survived the captivity and I asked about Jerusalem and they told me well there's a remnant there in the province who survived the captivity it's not good they're in great distress like a difficult set of circumstances and reproach there they are publicly held in low esteem by the people who were living there and as for Jerusalem the walls broken down the gates are burned with fire what is his response he just he breaks now this is really interesting was this the normal response of every Judean who hadn't yet returned to Jerusalem no okay I think the reason part of the reason why we're being told his story was he was unusually moved by the set of circumstances so that's interesting there were lots of Jews who didn't go who ever go back the Jewish community in Babylon grew and grew for centuries they produce really important works of literature like the Talmud we've heard the Talmud before was produced by the Jews living in Babylon so lots of people took Jeremiah's advice and made Homes and Gardens but when he hears about it something triggers him and he just breaks and it doesn't say why but then he just he delivers this incredible prayer that's what I said it's a copy and paste from phrases from the end of Deuteronomy and look at what he says he says I beseech you Lord God of heaven the great and awesome God you've been faithful to the Covenant you've been faithful and showing loving-kindness to those who love him and keep your Commandments let your ear be attentive let your eyes be open to the prayer of your servant that I'm praying day and night on behalf of the sons of Israel I mean why are we sitting in Babylon in the first place because of the sins of the sons of Israel i and my father's house have sinned and you're like well he seems like a pretty good guy actually do you see that he's identifying himself with the sin of like his his ancestors we've acted corruptly our whole family for generations we broke the covenant so remember what you told Moses so that's a hyperlink to listen let me just read and you see if you can remember the text that is being hyperlinked here here's what Moses said if you're unfaithful I'll scatter you among the peoples but if you return to me and keep my Commandments and do them even though those of you who are scattered in the most remote parts of heaven I will gather you from there I will bring them to the place where I have chosen for my name to dwell anybody Deuteronomy 30 so we'll be when all of these things the Covenant blessing the Covenant curses that I've set before you they come upon you and you call them to mind and all the nations that the Lord God has banished you if you return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity and so on yeah keep reading even if you're outcasts or at the ends of the earth from there the Lord will gather you back the Lord will bring you to the land your father's possessed he'll prosper you and moreover the Lord your God will do what to your hearts do you see this here we're right here where did Jeremiah and Ezekiel get the idea that God would one day transform the hearts of his people by the spirit to make them into faithful covenant partners that they haven't yet turned out to be where did the prophets get this idea I got it from Moses they themselves are developing this idea out of Deuteronomy 30 so just like the opening of Ezra triggered all of this by quoting Jeremiah so now this Nehemiah's opening prayer also triggers all of the same the same stuff and we're like yeah that's what we need return rebuild and the restoration of the hearts the hearts of the people so what he asks God to do he says listen these people are your servants that you redeemed by your great power I beseech you may your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servants who delight in your name make your servants successful today grant him compassion before this man and your question is what man like there's no other person in the story right now just right and then he goes on oh yeah sorry guys I was the cupbearer to the King and I'm about to have a conversation with him wasn't that great how that works he's a cup bearer to the king he's an Israelite who's an official in a foreign land and he's a cup bearer to the king just reminding of anybody else's story right Joseph's story Joseph's story he is the cup bearer has that dream about being restored to the king and then he's the brilliant now it came about in the month of Nisan in the 20th year of artaxerxes that wine was before him he was the king you know so I took up the wine and I gave it to the king you know I had never been sad in his presence but the king said to me yeah why are you so sad what's her are you sick do you have the flu this can be nothing but sadness of heart and then I was freaked out and I said to the king King live forever how can my face not be sad when the city and the place of my father's Tim's is desolate the gates are consumed by fire and the king said to me what do you want so I sent a quick prayer you guys know this this is one of the most well known parts of the story just in the moment prayer and I said could I go back and rebuild it and then the king said to me Queen was sitting right beside him how long will you be gone and then please the King to send me and so I gave him a time and he basically says here's the keys to the royal treasury have a blast and and then and then he goes so what's happening here in this story is this classic Old Testament story it doesn't tell you what the main point is you have to ponder and meditate but think so we have a character who the moment he hears about the desolation of Jerusalem his heart breaks and he he's so bothered by this passion that's inside of him that he can't hide it yeah he can't he like it's like Jeremiah keeping God's Word in like fire in his bones he can't not do it right and so it's so obvious to everybody around him it becomes obvious to the King now how on earth isn't it just what a coincidence that the guy who happens to be the cupbearer to the king is the one guy who has his heart broken when he hears about Jerusalem and he can't hide it and then what kind of King what kind of mood does the King have to be in on that day that he's like oh one of my servants is in a bad mood and instead of like being bummed he's like can I help you let's tweet us in therapy right now right and here with me it's really so interesting and then he just says listen the city is like this and the King says okay what do you want let me help you out and need like funds the whole thing so the story isn't saying it but it is saying it who is really at work here behind the scenes this is like a esther type of situation for such a time as this and like what Mordecai says to Esther even if you are silent God will raise up deliverance for this people from somewhere else that's totally what's happening here and so this whole intro story is this fascinating exploration of the Devon how Providence works in the lives of God's people it's when somebody's heart breaks or something inexplicably and then they meet someone else who just is feeling extraordinarily generous that day yeah this is how stuff works right if you're in ministry very long you know this is how stuff works and no one planned it this isn't any five year strategy this just happened and that's remarkable that's the cool story to tell so I this is a this is a great this is out finally we get to like a feel-good message Ezra Nehemiah this like a study in improvident and in how God can strategize things and align events to bring the hum comfort to his people in ways that they never would have imagined in their five-year plan come on this will tell me this won't preach yeah it's good stuff so it's it's when and we kind of had this already like what moved Cyrus to say this and what moved artaxerxes to send Ezra but this story really makes that the focus of the work of God's providence orchestrating events beyond what anybody could have planned for the benefit of his covenant covenant people and it doesn't always work that way does it all there's this daily life like things don't always happen they're actually really rare but when they do happen we're to receive them as gifts and steward them and and so there you go that's how me and Maya enters the scene that's my two cents on what to do with the story what to do with a story like that the next part you can pick multiple stories here but essentially how he goes about I just kind of have some thoughts here how he goes about rebuilding the walls it's all really interesting I think showing his integrity and character as a leader so he goes to the city and he doesn't announce his five-year plan he does a midnight ride like Paul Revere and he doesn't tell anybody he's just fact-gathering to guess it's in Chapter two he just goes at night he doesn't tell anybody what God's put in my heart and he just goes and surveys the wall he gathers tons of data and then he orchestrates a plan chapter three is all of these huge lists of families that helped him work the wall so you know Maya's clearly been at work arranging a broad scale coalition unity all of this is the stuff that the Nehemiah as building campaign model like that's this is where these stuff comes from but it's great it's actually in the story he when Nehemiah faces opposition in these stories he doesn't view it as divine disapproval like he has he makes his plan he starts to launch it and then we have all the Opposition notices there's seven of them I mean let's let's say you plan to do anything in life and then you encounter two people that you've never met before and the moment they find out about your plan they make it their mission in life to make you miserable and to support your plan and you would be tempted to say maybe this isn't God's will for me you know what I'm saying we often interpret opposition as a sign of maybe I'm not supposed to be doing this and he doesn't see things that way he sees it as just the opposite way and he never fights within he doesn't launch a war he just he does arm the people because he they spread rumors that they were gonna attack them so the Niemeyer they're great they're great stories so if anything this is about Providence and and maybe this is this could maybe even be a little too part miniseries of about Providence here's when everything goes great the story with the King and the story was getting the resources to go back but then there are other times where things don't go great and there's opposition and how do you maintain a trust in God's providence in those seasons and in those moments and these stories especially in Nehemiah two three and four are really cool for that so those are solis my two cents on the nehemiah stories hey guys done cool this is my maiden voyage with Ezra Nehemiah in a one day thing so I'm just kind of you know maiden voyage I made voyage okay here's what I I don't have anymore hmm I don't have red okay here's one I don't think you're gonna get miss it but it doesn't fit nicely Chapter five sticks out like a sore thumb and all of this material here Chapter five and let's just read the opening sentence and you'll see why it sticks out because most of the nehemiah story is this inspiring yes God's providence we're gonna trust him and move forward and then he gets in the mi5 which doesn't it tell you when in nehemiah's period it happened it just comes out of nowhere and says now one day there was a great outcry among the people and outcry of their wives against their Jewish brothers there were some people saying we and our sons and our daughters there's so many of us there's we need grain to live which people start there's Israelite starving in Jerusalem some Judean the Israelites have food there are others who are starving then there are others who said man we're having to sell our fields our vineyards and our houses to get grain because of this famine then there were those who are saying man we've had to borrow so much money to pay tap to pay the Persian taxes on our fields we're now having to borrow money and now our flesh is like the flesh of our brothers our children like their children we're Co Israelites living in Jerusalem but those of us who are poor we have to sell our children as slaves to pay off our debts and some of our daughters are forced into bondage we're helpless you guys with me so yeah here you thought this was a happy picture and even though this was complicated with Ezra this is all very inspiring and so we think yes we're doing great we're back in the city and then you realize like no there's famine there's economic inequities inequalities among the Israelites and so some of the poor of the Israelites are having to sell their children into slavery just to make their mortgage so they don't lose their land and they're having to take out loans with interest from other Israelites how does it make nehemiah feel it's angry he has the same response that Ezra had when he heard about the marriages and so Nehemiah he cares about the Torah and he says what you guys are charging interest on your loans to other Israelites that's breaking the laws of the Torah you guys there's explicit laws in the Torah that says when we lend money to each other as this realized so we don't charge interest remember that whole slavery thing in Egypt that was we're not supposed to replay that so then he goes on and this this whole example of how he sets an example himself he says listen I was sent by the Persian King and I was entitled to have a huge huge food allowance and to purse he could personally benefit from the taxes on the Israelites and he says yeah I didn't do that he built a lean staff on a lean budget so that he didn't have to benefit from any taxes off the Israelites and that's the story okay so let me just why is this story here why is this story here do we like Nehemiah is a good guy we like Nehemiah what is the state of the people so remember this was kind of like okay I can see why you said no to those people but man that caused a lot of problems and I can see why as we did what he did man that probably had some negative consequences among the people and then here Nehemiah we love him he's in credible and then we have this story about Israelites like breaking the laws of the Torah and charging interest to you and you're just like what what's happening here why isn't this working the leaders seem to be doing their the best why isn't this working and that's right smack in the middle of the Ezra Ezra story in chapter 5 so you finished you can walk away from that story and they finished the wall despite great opposition and you get a list once they finish building the wall that you get a list this is interesting chapter 7 is a long census list of the people who returned from exile and if you're reading it and bored it's probably because you already read this list in chapter 2 the exact same list of the Israelites who returned so unless the biblical author is intentionally trying to bore you which I swear they're never ever trying to do that intentionally usually it's just that we're not getting what's going on there's some something going on here so these two chapters act like almost like a bookend of this section of the book is drawn to a return and the rebuilding has drunk come to its conclusion through these three cycles every one of them has had high points and low points now we're gonna get the two-part conclusion to the book and essentially it's gonna go it's gonna go like this we're gonna be really happy and we're back and we're really gonna follow the Torah this time and then they don't and then that's how the book ends Ezra Nehemiah but there you go we've wrapped up our tour of the first three movements I guess I guess doing okay what time is it it's 209 Hera Hera is post-lunch food comment should we take a quick potty break what do you think

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

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Id: PDuq0Kv-JK0

Length: 55min 28sec (3328 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 30 2018