Rebuilding Home: 13 Days in NehemiahSample

How can we make the boring parts of life meaningful?

In life, there are few extraordinary days. Most days are ordinary – we brush our teeth, eat our meals, finish our tasks, wash our dishes, take out our trash, and get some sleep. Every once in a while, something extraordinary happens – a miracle, revelation, or angel makes an unexpected appearance. The Bible reports a lot of extraordinary days. The Bible also reports a lot of ordinary days. In reading the Bible, many, if not most, people skip the ordinary days and stop to focus on the extraordinary days.

The first two chapters of Nehemiah were extraordinary days – Nehemiah was deeply burdened by God, given a fresh vision to rebuild Jerusalem so that God’s people could live safely and worship freely, along with a detailed plan that was miraculously granted by the king after months of fasting and praying. Chapter three reports the normal days – regular people doing regular tasks like most people on most days. Nehemiah has moved from Susa to Jerusalem, and with the plan completed, the long days of hard work commence.

After the ordinary days of hard work – digging holes, shoveling dirt, hauling, and stacking stones – there will be more extraordinary days that include a revival among God’s people in response to Spirit-filled Bible teaching and worship leading. In the middle of the extraordinary days are the ordinary days. This is the cycle of ministry – someone has to vacuum the church, change the air filters, take out the trash, restock the toilet paper, pay the electric bill, replace the dead light bulbs, and unlock the front door – so that people can come in to meet with God and have an extraordinary day. Most of what is celebrated in ministry are extraordinary days. What makes those days possible are the ordinary days when humble, faithful, hardworking servants of God get practical things done. This is the heart of Nehemiah 3 and God’s way of honoring faithful servants by naming the leaders and their teams in His Word to commemorate their ordinary ministry forever.

As we examine what is considered by many to be the most boring and irrelevant chapter in the entire book, it’s curious to note that some Bible commentaries skip it altogether. For those who are willing to read chapter 3 carefully and prayerfully, there is much that God will impart to them because if something is in the Bible, it must be significant. Paul reminds us in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” Sometimes, our “good work” involves a hard day’s labor, just like our Lord, who spent 90% of his life swinging a hammer.

As you read Nehemiah 3, stop for a moment and imagine that your name was in that chapter, along with your family and friends who served with you in some tedious ministry task. This chapter would likely become your favorite in the entire book, if not among your favorite chapters in the entire Bible. The lengthy list of names and projects includes 38 people, along with numerous others whose names are not listed, 42 separate teams laboring to complete various assigned aspects of the work, spread across seven neighborhoods in the city marked by their corresponding gates. In this enormous city and ministry project, we learn the following principles regarding people and their leaders.

Insights for Leaders

•Have a clear plan before you start assigning duties to people

•Make sure your team knows its mission and is unified

•Smaller projects require generalists who can do many things; larger projects require specialists who are experts at one thing

•Deputize trustworthy people and trust them to be dependable

•Create layers and levels of leadership and communication so that the leader is not the bottleneck of the mission

•The senior leader(s) must work on the organization so that everyone else can work in the organization

•Look for old stones/resources that have proven valuable and helpful in the past and can be repurposed for the present and future

Insights for People

•God works through people, and so you are important for God’s mission

•All work is holy and can be considered ministry if done unto the Lord

•Leaders must lead (3:1)

•Some people refuse to work (3:5)

•Some people do more than others (3:11, 3:19, 3:21, 3:24, 3:27, 3:30)

•Some people work from home (3:10, 3:23, 3:28-30)

•Some people work harder than others (3:20)

•Families often work together in areas of ministry

•Some work is less desirable than others (e.g., Dung Gate)

•Recruiting people from the outside to round out a great team is necessary (e.g., men of Jericho, people from the outlying cities of Tekoa, Gibeon, Mizpah, Zanoah, Beth Hukkerem)

•A diverse team is the most desirable (e.g. priests; skilled craftsmen in 3:8, 3:31-32; city officials; women in 3:12; bachelors in 3:12; temple servants/deacons in 3:26, 3:31; security guards in 3:29; and business leaders in 3:32).

In reading the long list of names, we see how God acknowledges and even honors the hard work of those who love Him and labor to make His name great. In the spirit of Nehemiah 3, it is encouraging to make a habit of acknowledging and thanking people who are humbly serving in your ministry, doing the hard work that no one sees but that everyone benefits from.

Question:

When reading Nehemiah 3, who comes to mind as an example of a faithful, humble person who serves without prestige or praise?