More Thoughts on Nehemiah 13

Arcanum

It was in Huntemann's book that I first heard the word, "arcanum." Arcanum is "the secret place." It is that place where the uninitiated are not allowed and in some cases, are even ignorant of its existence. For the church, the arcanum is that place where the world is not welcome. It is a private place where devotion to the apostles' teaching and bread-breaking and prayer take place free from the World's scrutiny. Quiet. Peaceful. Secret. Holy. Arcanum.

In today's world the worship center has "Visitors Welcome" posted above the door and the concept of the arcanum is foreign to us. There are few "secret" places. There are few arenas or realms in church life where the visitor is not welcome. Most are public, open and certainly "an opportunity for evangelism."

As Nehemiah begins his reforms, the first priority was "ethnic cleansing." This cleansing was not just the removal of different races and nations, but separation from cultures and religions and ideologies. Nehemiah was removing external influence and distraction. He was creating an environment for confession and repentance and support and devotion and prayer and unhindered reflection on the Law. The arcanum was a place where trust was established and maintained. Where confession was promoted, expected and done. But it didn't happen while the world looked on with knitted brows and crossed arms. Nehemiah separated himself from the world. Even if only for a day or two.

The expectation of confession can hardly be maintained on "Bring a Friend Sunday." And the implications of tough apostolic teaching need to be worked through sometimes just with friends and brothers. Intimacy is best in private. So is confrontation. And from my point of view...so is repentance.*

Marriage

Wanna let your daughter mess around with a worldly Beau? Or your son date a slut? I have a while before this test comes to my house, but after reading Nehemiah, if my son wanted to get busy with Suzy Q Whore, I might just have to take him down and grab a handful of hair and make him swear an oath. If that doesn't work, maybe the girl will leave him since he'd have those numerous bald spots.

Promoting Purity

Its hard to keep the Sabbath, when you have salesmen right outside the gate. "Fish! Bread! Vegetables! Fruit! 25% off....Today!" Nehemiah did what was needed: he removed temptation. We learn from Joseph and Jesus and Nehemiah and others that sometimes purity takes place only when the temptation is removed. Sometimes we face the temptation and other times we pray "lead us not into temptation" - meaning "I don't want to face temptation." It is right and good to remove things, situations, people - any sources of temptation - if that is what is necessary for purity. So Nehemiah did not just call people to repentance, but he did everything in his power to make repentance possible.

Boasting

More than once, Nehemiah prayed and said, "God, remember me and this good thing I did." Part of me cringes at the very idea of saying to the Creator, "Hey! Look at what I did and remember it" but Nehemiah felt comfortable. Who knows whether we'll be rewarded for each good thing we do but...I suspect so. At any rate, it is impossible to conceive of Nehemiah believing that his good things outweighed his bad or that he saw them as part and parcel to his justification before God. But maybe he just set his heart to one thing: not boasting.

When we do something good for another person or maybe we even accomplish the amazing, our first fleshly tendency is to report it to the first person who will listen. So maybe Nehemiah thought, "If I am going to keep from boasting before men, then maybe I need to point out my good things to God."

To keep from complaining before men, I'll make my needs known to God.
To keep from boasting before men, I'll make my deeds known to God.

Just some thoughts.

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* I believe repentance is a public posture. Repentance only done while in private might not even be repentance. However, many of the events leading to repentance and the commitment and initialization of repentance need not be the world's business. In fact, it is none of their business.

By Any Means Necessary

Warning: This post contains the word "ass"... used improperly.

One of the most exciting pictures of Jesus is that table-turning day in the Temple. His best friend later described the scene by quoting Scripture, "Zeal for Your House has consumed Me." Hollywood has never done justice to Jesus. It has never captured his eyes, his smile, his despair, his passion or his zeal. No movie could ever top our imaginations and our imaginations can hardly imagine a man walking into a crowded Temple market and doing what Jesus did...by himself.

But Nehemiah was this kind of @$$-kicker. Chapter 13 is worth reading by itself.

By Any Means Necessary.

This phrase was popularized by Malcolm X in the 1960's. Pre-Mecca Malcolm, that is. * However, if you've ever read Nehemiah, you know that he was the original Nehemiah X.

Nehemiah had returned to Susa to his cup-bearer position before the king but he asked for a little more leave to check on his hometown of Jerusalem. When he returned, he found the temple service abandoned, one of his arch enemies living in the prime real estate of the temple storage unit, the people of God intermingling with the other nations, marrying and giving in marriage and profaning the Sabbath.

So here is what he did.

If you weren't a Jew, you got the cold shoulder or you got booted. Kicked out of the city. I don't think the people took this lightly, nonetheless Nehemiah forced them out.

He was extremely angry to discover that Tobiah was living in the Temple storage area. He threw all of Tobiah's furniture out of the chamber and onto the lawn. Undoubtedly, if Tobiah had returned to complain, Nehemiah would have whooped his @$$.

Nehemiah then made the people of God honor the Sabbath by stopping work and stopping the shopping. Furthermore, as the foreigners lined up outside the gate to sell things on the Sabbath, he told them in no uncertain terms, "Get away from this gate on Saturday or I am going to kick your @$$."

Nehemiah then gathered together the Jewish men who had foreign wives and children and he "contended" with them and he cursed them. When repentance wasn't forthcoming, he beat their @$$es and pulled out their hair and made them take an oath not to give their families away to foreigners or take foreigners into their families.

Finally, as the son of the high priest was married to another of Nehemiah's arch enemies, Nehemiah chased him out of the city.

Zeal for His House consumed him.

By any means necessary.

This is what Jesus meant when he said, "Pluck out your right eye" and "cut off your right hand." This was his message in the Temple. This was God's message in Numbers 16 and Paul's in 1 Corinthians 5 and 6.

"Be saved from this perverse generation," Peter said.

Purity and sanctification and devotion to God is serious business in our lives, our families and our churches.

I forget that sometimes.

I was reminded by Nehemiah....by any means necessary.

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*I recommend for history buffs the Spike Lee biographical film of Malcolm X, starring Denzel Washington.

A World Under Water

I read an interesting little book last month and I was reminded of a couple of things worth mentioning. This is a summary of an article entitled "A World Under Water."

In the days of Noah, the world (κοσμος) came under judgment through its wickedness. From morning to night, every thought was only to do evil. Destruction was the righteous decree from heaven.


As the story goes, Noah spent some 100 years or more crafting his now-famous Ark. The rains eventually came, the floods rose and yet the Eight and their cargo remained safe in the buoyant vessel. The wicked world outside of the boat perished.

As the water rose to cover even the highest of mountains, the waterline demonstrated a certain reality: The world below the water was destroyed, annihilated; the world above was saved – “brought safely through the water.”

And this is the Apostle’s view of “salvation.” Salvation to him is not just “rescue from sins” or “escaping hell to receive heaven” but it is a very real movement from one world to another, from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of Light. It is a salvation (movement) out of a condemned world.

Notice Peter’s language in Acts 2. “Be saved from this perverse generation!” Everything about this generation, this world, this culture, this earth will be consumed. It is all condemned. It is all under judgment. It is all under divine wrath. “Be saved!” he cried out “from this world.” His meaning is that salvation consists in the transfer into the other “world.”

In 1 Peter 3, as Peter recounts the story of Noah’s salvation, we see Noah brought safely “through the water” – lifted from the κοσμος of condemnation to float in the world of God’s renewal and grace. And now baptism corresponds to this. “Baptism now saves you,” Peter says. * In the water, the old world is washed away, destroyed and annihilated. Sins are washed away and consciences are cleaned. The believer is brought safely through the water to life in the kingdom of God. A salvation has happened – that is, a movement from the condemned κοσμος to the position of God’s mercy. Above the water.

Jesus said it. John said it. “Love not the κοσμος – the world. Everything about the world will be washed away in fire and judgment. This world with its power, technology, beauty, culture, intelligence, sensuality and art will all be consumed. The physical earth in its beauty will be consumed (and made new.**) Nothing of this world will remain or stand before God.

As a result, we must never let our affection rest on that which is doomed to melt. We must put our love and desire into that which will remain: The Triune God and His chosen people. God has effected our salvation, so we should never desire the things drifting below the waterline.

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* There is much to be said about baptism's relationship to salvation, justification and regeneration that I won't say here. I did say it here.

** I have read a bit about the "New Heavens and the New Earth" but I ain't settled on it.

A Mature Church

"Hand me a brick," the Mason said to the Apprentice. The young man reached over to the diminished pile and palmed the nearest brick. With a sigh, he handed the last piece of the puzzle to the Mason. The Mason balanced the brick beside his muddied trowel and hoisted a battered bucket of gray cement to the top of the retaining wall. With a smile, he applied the last of the cement to the last hole in which the last brick would be placed to complete the last wall of the garden. After the grooves were cleaned and the brick squared, the Mason looked down on his weary apprentice and said with the swelled-chest of satisfaction, "We did it."

"Yes, you did" replied the Apprentice. "Yes you did."

But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says,

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”

(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions of the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for works of service for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

I have been the prideful, selfish Mason.

And I have been doing it all wrong.

Maybe I'll put more up later.

Peace to all brothers in the Year of our Lord 2007.