Seeds for 10/03/2024 - Nehemiah 6:10-15
Scripture:
10 One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home. He said, “Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you—by night they are coming to kill you.”
11 But I said, “Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!” 12 I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. 13 He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.
14 Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, my God, because of what they have done; remember also the prophet Noadiah and how she and the rest of the prophets have been trying to intimidate me. 15 So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days.
Observation:
A clergy colleague has a saying: “Jesus called His followers to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves but too often the children of God have been as wise as doves and as innocent as serpents.” I don’t see Nehemiah falling into this mistake. What do we observe in this exchange?
First, Nehemiah gets the information first hand. He goes to “the house of Shemaiah” and hears his offer straight from the horse’s mouth. It seems at first as if he is trying to aid Nehemiah, but this is deceiving.
Second, Nehemiah’s discernment regarding his course of action and the motivations of this man are based on the sort of man he is called to be. He asks, “Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life?” When offered what seems from one vantage point like a prudent option, Nehemiah doesn’t think about whether it is a strategic option, he sniffs out that it would run counter to the sort of man and leader he is called to be in this situation. He grounds his decision in the first principles of character, not in secondary calculations.
Third, Nehemiah was no one’s fool and understood the value of character. There’s a place for assuming the best about people. But there is also a place for avoiding naiveté and, with a sharp mind, seeing what’s happening for what it is. The person offering help was not genuine. He was a hired agent. Nehemiah saw that this man’s purpose was to draw Nehemiah into a compromising action that would come back to bite him and his leadership: “then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.” He knew the value of his reputation and difficulty for his leadership once that reputation was sullied.
Application:
When have you witnessed disingenuous “help” offered from someone?
How hard or easy is it for you to catch this in the moment versus processing it later? Why?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, grant me increasing clarity about my calling and character in Jesus, that I may resist temptations to compromise effectively. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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