As we learned from our ealier study of Nehemiah, it is no good to have beautiful buildings if the people inhabiting the buildings are corrupt. Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. And this holiness of the people must extend to every member of the community – including both church officers and congregants. Today our goal is to understand the connection between the ministers of the Old Covenant, priests and Levites, and the ministers of the New Covenant, elders and deacons – so that all members of the Church of God might be holy and blameless.

Today in Nehemiah, the author lists the principle ministers, priests and Levites, who served in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. We are going to use this list as an opportunity to learn about the ministers of the Old Covenant. Where did the ministry originate, what were the basic responsibilities of the priests and Levites, and why is it that we no longer have priests and Levites in the Church? These are the questions we’ll answer this week, paving the way for next week examining the work of the ministry in the New Covenant.

God’s people need leaders – leaders to speak the Word of God to them, leaders to counsel and pray for them, leaders to hold them accountable and correct them. Not only is this true of the Church; it is true of families, communities, businesses, etc. We are in need of leaders – and, what is more, we are in need of leaders who are men.

To truly understand the Word of God is not simply to know what it says but to put its wisdom into practice; to truly understand the Word is to apply it in the here and now, to apply it in our lives, in our generation. It does no good to know that God hates divorce, hates covenantal treachery, if we are divorcing our spouses. It does no good to know that God hates theft if we are embezzling from our employer. We have not truly understood the Word of God until we apply it in our lives; until it makes us change our behavior, adjust our worship, intensify our prayers.

Today we see our fathers renewing covenant with God and so we have occasion to take up the issue of covenants. What does it mean to renew covenant? What is a covenant in the first place? And why does God take covenants so seriously? These are the questions we get to address today. 

The prayer of the Levites in Nehemiah 9 insists that the Lord God is a God who keeps covenant and shows mercy. What does this mean? Through a careful study of the prayer itself we discover what it means and how we as the people of God can call upon God in times of great personal and corporate need even when that need has been the result of past sin and disobedience. Further, we learn what it means for us to be people who keep covenant and show mercy.

All of us know that the presence of garbage in our homes is inevitable. In both clean homes and dirty homes, food is consumed, messes are made, things break. But in dirty, these messes are left where they lie. And soon they fill the house to overflowing; the stench increases; no one pays a visit; neighbors move away. In a clean home, however, these messes are picked up along the way. So, the home remains clean and habitable.

There is an unfortunate tendency among us as God’s people – when we are delivered from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of light – to become sour and prunish – to scrunch up our faces and bemoan the sad state of the world. Rather than have faces full of joy and hearts full of gratitude, we look as though we’ve drunk a quart of vinegar. 

Why is this? Why do we respond to the Good News of Jesus Christ not with joy and liberation but with sorrow and acerbity? No doubt the reasons are many – both cultural and psychological. But one, which we see occurring in Nehemiah, is that we can become so overwhelmed with our personal and corporate sin, so overwhelmed with a sense of guilt, that we think it our fundamental duty to mourn and weep rather than to give thanks, to fast rather than to feast. The response of our fathers to this temptation will hopefully help us navigate these waters carefully and to become a thankful people.

Frequently throughout Scripture we are exhorted to “fear” the Lord. What does this mean and how do we manifest appropriate fear? Today we find that the people of God manifest their fear of God by hungering for His Word and tangibly demonstrating their attentiveness both with their bodies and their lips. Fear, in other words, manifests itself in concrete actions that communicate respect and attentiveness. And attentiveness to the Word of God means growing in our understanding of it not simply treating it as a magic talisman.