Leadership and Renewal (Part One)

There are many 21st-century lessons for the church in the Nehemiah story. Among those practical applications is the need for recognition of the diversity of strengths and gifts. No individual follower of the Lord has received all the spiritual gifts. Those gifts are bestowed by the Holy Spirit: “The same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills” (1 Cor. 12:11). In reading the story in Nehemiah, it seems to me that Nehemiah was strong in leadership, and Ezra was skilled in teaching (Rom. 12:8). This shows up in the two major themes in Nehemiah:

1.    In Nehemiah 1–7, the theme is reconstruction. Here is the story of Nehemiah’s long journey to Jerusalem with a passion to rebuild the broken walls of the city. This gigantic task was accomplished in a record-breaking 52 days (4:6; 6:15).

2.    In Nehemiah 8–13, the theme is reinstruction. These chapters record a “back to the Bible” movement. This public reading of the Torah by Ezra and others led to repentance of sin in the congregation gathered at the Water Gate. The festivals that followed were a source of great joy!

Renewal and Its Starting Place (Neh. 8:1-6)
Thousands of people gathered at the open square by the Water Gate and called for Ezra to get the scroll containing the Pentateuch. This was the turning point. In hundreds of churches, spiritual leaders constantly remind their people to “bring your Bibles.” Here was something new and refreshing—the congregation pled with their “Pastor Ezra” to read the Scriptures! They had a hunger for the Word. A unified people with a single purpose longed for the Bible to be read and explained. No wonder a revival broke loose. They lost a sense of time (from morning to midday). There were no distractions as full attention was given to the 13 readers on the wooden platform. In chapter 7, they took a census and then they gathered for worship. They built a platform and “all the people gathered together as one man in the open square” (8:1). So about 50,000 people showed up for the outdoor service!
Today we long for this hunger for God and His Word to be experienced again. Raymond Brown writes in his book The Message of Nehemiah: “The distinctive characteristics of this meeting for biblical exposition are strikingly relevant in our late twentieth-century world. Western materialistic culture has become increasingly indifferent to the Bible. The latest statistics suggest that in England and Wales the number of regular churchgoers who read the Bible on a daily basis is declining every year. Of the 700 people interviewed in connection with a recent survey, only 15% were committed to day-by-day Bible reading. Another 15% stated that they never read any version of the Bible outside a church service. Almost 40% indicated that they read the Bible only once a year or less” (pp.127-28). The thousands gathered at the Water Gate in Jerusalem have something to say to us: Revival begins with a passionate return to our Bibles.

We’ll resume here tomorrow.