Shortly after I returned from India, in the fall of 1979, I heard that Francis Schaeffer was speaking at a conference in Philadelphia. When I and some others expressed an interest in the conference, the father of one of Annie’s friends bought tickets for all of us. I had never met this man until then. He just knew that there were some ex-OM’ers who wanted to go hear Francis Schaeffer. He owned several meat markets in Lancaster County, and he had the financial means to pay our way; the thing that became clear, as I talked with him during the conference, was that he took great delight in being able to do this. There was no sense of superiority. We were very grateful to him, but he didn’t seem to think it was a big deal. It was as if God had called all of us to that conference and had simply entrusted him with the money; he saw himself as a steward, entrusted with a certain amount of money to use under God’s lordship.
Ten years later, Annie and I were looking to move out of Philadelphia. I was in graduate school at Temple University, and Michael and Daniel were both toddlers at the time. But life in the city just wasn’t working well for us as a family. When he learned of our desire to move, this same man told us to go ahead and sell our row house and come live with him and his wife as long as necessary until we could get settled somewhere else (all of their own children were grown by this time). So we left the city, stored all our furniture in their barn, and lived in their home for 6 months. When we first got there, I approached him about paying rent and helping with buying food. After all, we were adding four people to the house, which would increase the food bill considerably. But he told me they didn’t want us to pay rent. When I pressed the issue, he said: “We have enough money; we don’t need any more.” And again, he and his wife approached it with the same attitude I had seen 10 years earlier. God had entrusted them with their money, and they wanted to use it faithfully under His lordship. Not only this, but as members of the body of Christ, part of their stewardship involved using their money for the good of the body, not just for themselves. Rather than giving away something that belonged to them, my impression has been that these people see themselves as having been entrusted with some of the money that will be needed by others in the body. It’s not theirs. It belongs to God, and their responsibility is to prayerfully discern how God wants it to be used.
Nehemiah would approve of this outlook. We see him, throughout this chapter, acting in similar ways and calling others in the nation to do the same. Nehemiah is clearly a wealthy man, but he’s intent on using his wealth for the good of God’s people, not for his own personal enrichment. The thing we can see in this chapter is this: God calls His people to care for one another in concrete ways. That means not taking advantage of one another, but it means more than that. The command, “love one another as I have loved you,” coming from the One who impoverished Himself to enrich us, is meant to transform every area of our lives.
Notice, first of all, that Nehemiah rebukes the officials and nobles for profiting from the suffering of their brethren. The people come to him with a series of complaints, listed in verses 1-5. The work of building the wall has taken people away from their means of livelihood, and for some of them the problem is becoming serious. The first group, in verse 2, are people who don’t have land. Their situation is desperate; they need food for themselves and their families if they’re to stay alive. The second group, in verse 3, has had to mortgage their land to get food during the crisis. And the third group, in verse 4, has had to borrow money to pay taxes. All of them are at the point where their children are being subjected to debt-slavery. They’re having to give their children as slaves to their creditors, to pay off the debt. And the people they’re borrowing from, the people who are subjecting them to debt-slavery, are fellow-Israelites. The wealthy people in the nation are supplying them with food, but they’re making a profit. They’re making sure they get everything they can out of the deal.
When Nehemiah hears what is going on, he says, “I was very angry.” We see here something of his wisdom as a leader, because he doesn’t immediately speak out in his anger. He says, “I pondered [these things] in my mind.” He stops and thinks about the best course of action, and then, having pondered the situation, he “accused the nobles and officials.” There’s some debate among commentators, and there are also differences in translations, over whether Nehemiah is rebuking them for charging interest on loans. Under Old Testament law, it was permissible to charge interest to foreigners, but not to fellow-Israelites. We don’t have time to discuss this in any detail, and anyway, it’s really not the main issue here. Nehemiah doesn’t confront them primarily on the basis of law. Some of them may have been guilty of violating the law; maybe some others were staying within the strict parameters of legal observance, so they felt OK about what they were doing. Whether they were within the law or not, they were gaining a profit from the suffering of their brethren.
Nehemiah charges them with violating their obligations to the family of God’s community. “You are exacting usury from your own countrymen” (v. 7b). “Now you are selling your own brothers” (v. 8b). They’re using this crisis as an opportunity to enrich themselves. They’re benefitting from the suffering of their brethren. They may be breaking the law also, but Nehemiah doesn’t want them to just do the minimum that the law requires. He wants them to look at one another differently, to see one another as brethren engaged in a common task, with an obligation to carry one another’s burdens. He says that their conduct reveals a spiritual problem: “Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God...?” They’re not walking in the fear of God, they’re not taking seriously all that God has done for them, and, as a result, they’re providing unbelievers with an opportunity to speak evil of the religion of Israel. By using this situation as an opportunity to enrich themselves, they’re violating their family in the faith, they’re defecting from the God who’s called them by His name, and they are causing His name to be blasphemed by His enemies. They’re violating their family obligations, they’re being unfaithful in their stewardship of God’s resources, and they’re giving a bad witness to the unbelieving world.
Notice, next, that Nehemiah calls them to do just the opposite of what they’re doing. Rather than profiting from their brethren’s suffering, he calls them to take a loss financially for the sake of the community of God’s people: “Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the usury you are charging them – the hundredth part of the money, grain, new wine and oil.” It was legal to hold a borrower’s possessions as collateral on a loan. That’s what the “fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses” are. The nobles and officials have seized all these things, to make sure they get their money back in the future. And some of them are charging interest, contrary to the law. Nehemiah tells them to give it all back. It’s better for them to take a loss, rather than take advantage of any of God’s people. In this situation, they should be giving, rather than receiving. God calls them to take a loss, to give up these things. Some of them are acting within the strict limits of the law, but what they are doing is displeasing to God.
Again, we see Nehemiah’s wisdom as a leader. He confronts these offenders without alienating them. If he had approached this as a purely legal question, it may have led to endless debate. But because he approaches it as a family problem, they have no defense: “They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say” (v. 8b). In the end, they agree to follow his instructions: “We will give it back.... And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say.” To make sure they understand the seriousness of their commitment, Nehemiah calls for the priests, and has the nobles and officials take an oath in their presence. Then he prophetically utters a curse on any who don’t follow through. Nehemiah isn’t just blowing off steam in his anger. He’s seeking to lead God’s people through a time of crisis. He listens to the problem, pauses to carefully consider the right course of action, then he boldly confronts the people with a concrete course of action. The end result is described at the end of verse 13: “At this the whole assembly said, ‘Amen,’ and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised.”
The third thing to notice is this: Nehemiah himself models the things he’s calling the people to do. That’s the point of verses 14-19. In the earlier part of the chapter, he’s describing a crisis that happened during the building of the walls of Jerusalem. In this final paragraph of the chapter, he’s reflecting on his conduct for 12 years as governor. He says that previous governors laid heavy burdens on the people to enrich themselves. But he refused to follow their example: “neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor.” He was entitled to it, as governor, but he declined. Neither he nor his men acquired any land through his position (v. 16). Nehemiah was there to serve, not to be served. He came to Jerusalem to give something, not to get something for himself.
The even more startling thing is that he fed, at his own expense, “a hundred and fifty Jews and officials... as well as those who came to us from the surrounding nations.” He describes what this meant each day: “Each day one ox, six choice sheep and some poultry were prepared for me, and every ten days an abundant supply of wine of all kinds. In spite of all this, I never demanded the food allotted to the governor.” He bore it all at his own expense. Nehemiah was a wealthy man, but he didn’t see it as his own wealth, to do whatever he wanted with. It had been entrusted to his care, for the benefit of God’s people.
He tells us explicitly why he conducted himself in this way. In verse 15, after telling how the previous governors placed a heavy burden on the people, he says “But out of reverence for God I did not act like that.” He was more concerned about faithfulness to God than he was about personal gain (and the previous governors were just the opposite). He was willing to take a financial loss in order to be faithful to God’s call. And then, in verse 18, he says “I never demanded the food allotted to the governor, because the demands were heavy on these people.” He genuinely cared about the people, which motivated him to use his wealth compassionately. So, Nehemiah modeled the things he was calling the people to do, 1) out of reverence for God, and 2) out of love for God’s people. He was motivated by the 2 greatest commandments. When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, He answered: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40). Nehemiah’s conduct was motivated by these two commands.
God calls His people to care for one another in concrete ways. Our financial decisions, as God’s people, cannot be primarily about how to get more. The most important thing is not getting the most for ourselves or for our families. The most important thing is living under God’s sovereign lordship, being faithful stewards of the resources He’s entrusted to our care. He may have entrusted something to our care which He intends for someone else. And this applies, not only to our money, but also to our time and the use of all our gifts. All we do, in every area of our lives, needs to be done with these two things in mind: 1) reverence for God, and 2) compassion for His people. “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
The One to whom we’ll one day give account is the same One who possess all power in heaven and on earth, and about whom it is said: “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). He took a great loss for the sake of our gain. Are we following Him in the way of the cross, or are we so unlike Him that we can’t bear the thought of enduring loss for His sake? The nobles and officials of Nehemiah’s time went wrong because they were too occupied with their own concerns and were not attentive to the needs of God’s people. Let’s be attentive, not only to the possibility of financial gain, but to the possibility that God may want us to use our resources in ways that we’ve never considered. Let’s put all we have and all we are at His disposal. We may have things that He intends for someone else, and yet, for the moment, has entrusted to us. Our job is to do all we can to make sure these things end up where God wants them. “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action” (1 John 3:16-18). He laid down His life for us, and He calls us to lay down our lives for one another in His name. Doing that will often be painful and costly, as it was for Him. But knowing what He’s done for us, how can we, who’ve received so much freely from His hand, do otherwise?
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