Nehemiah 9: The Power of the Word
They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the LORD their God.
For all the splendor of the temple, it had become a meaningless symbol to most Jews. They had even put idols in it. God had finally allowed the Babylonians to burn the temple down. After the exile the Jews had made rebuilding the temple their first priority. But it was no longer an automatic insurance policy. They could never again see the building as a substitute for real devotion to God.
Their leaders? Not one king, over hundreds of years, had come close to matching God’s ideal. Most kings had been scoundrels- descendants of David in name only. After the exile, Israel had no king of its own. The Israelites were under the thumb of a Persian, who was determined to keep all power himself.
And so, they turned to another source of power: the Word of God. The great gathering of chapter 8 stands in contrast to temples and kings. The splendor of jewels and crowns is replaced by a single man atop a wooden platform, reading from a simple scroll. Yet the words he reads, carefully explained to all, show their power in the way they affect those who hear them. The people are moved to praise God, to weep over their sins, to change their behavior, and to make renewed promises to God.
From this time on, the Jews were known as the people of the Book. They lived under foreign domination, so their political leadership became secondary. Their temple, while important, was never again a guarantee of God’s presence. Increasingly they studied God’s law and tried to obey it. A new kind of leader emerged, following Ezra- the scribe, a student of Scripture. The nation we see at the end of Nehemiah looks very much like the nation we find, after 400 years of Scriptural silence, when Jesus appears. Israelites found their unique strength neither in government nor in worship rituals, but in reverence for God’s written Word.
Life Question: Can you point to ways in which God’s Word has been powerful in your life? How has it changed you?
John 3:16 pretty much summarizes the entire New Testament for me. For God so loved the world, he gave his one and only Son; and whoever believes in Him shall have eternal life. This is such a powerful little sentence, but- as a Dad- I simply can’t fathom what it would be like to hand over one of my own kids knowing that a painful and agonizing death would be a certainty. Amazing love…
2 comments:
If I can broad-brush my answer, I think I can look back and identify how powerful God's Word has been in my life when I contrast the times that I am studying the Word, verses times when I neglect to read it all all. I am reminded that His Word is ALIVE; without it, I am empty. I loose focus, and quickly I find myself directing my life (and all that comes with it) through my own will and not the will of the Father. But when I come to my senses (sometimes only when I'm trapped by my own selfish failure) I realize that he is there waiting. The Word becomes real. Whether it's donning the Armor of God or praying out a Psalm or Proverb of praise - I am quickly reminded of my smallness - and my dependency on God. God's Truth permeates. It reveals. It convicts. It loves...
To me, that is a power that I cannot quite explain to another - on just how that impacts me and my world.
Why then, does my selfishness keep me from this power everyday? Praise God for patience, but pray for discipline - for nothing is greater, or more powerful than the life directed by God and His Word.
Thought: How does today's Church handle the Word? How often is the Word studied and read?
The text of today reminds that it is not enough to simply read the Word of God: The people spent six hours reading the Scripture and another six hours in repentant worship. How often I've spent time reading the Word without the honest look into my own heart to make the necessary changes I know I need to make. It is easy to make reading the end of it; as if I can check something off of my daily job-jar task and be done with it.I know the wise man must build on the Word and put it into his own active existence.This action makes each of us a Spirit&Truth worshipper.
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