This week’s Bible reading has many, many verses in it that stand out to me.  Of them all, though, the one that most fired my imagination was Colossians 2:8.  There, Paul writes, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” 

Contrary to what we might think, in this verse, Paul makes clear that being captured is not a bad thing per se.  Instead, we’re supposed to avoid being captured, or indeed capturing others, with the wrong thing.  Being taken captive by philosophy, empty deceit, human tradition, or the elemental spirits of the world:  bad.  Being taken captive by Christ:  good.

Our first application here must be to ourselves.  We can have other hobbies, interests, and concerns, but the One who owns us must be Jesus.  Our minds and hearts must be turned to Him above all others.

Second, in our efforts to win the lost, we must be careful of using anything but Jesus to appeal to outsiders.  There are some obvious applications here.  The congregation that attracts unbelievers with a worship service that sounds like a rock concert has made converts to the rock concert, not to Jesus.  The church that gets people on its church bus by taping a five-dollar-bill under one of the seats might be bringing those people to services, but it isn’t bringing them to the Lord.  Rick Warren to the contrary, “Train up a child in the way he should go,” is not sufficient authority for a church to establish a potty-training ministry!  The gospel, not earthly appeal, is what brings the lost to Christ.

However, we must look to ourselves here too.  It is possible for us to adhere to the form of Bible authority while defeating God’s purpose and intent.  Consider, for instance, song worship.  It is entirely possible for a congregation to raise the rafters in four-part a-cappella harmony yet not take  visitors captive to Christ.  Only the word of Christ, first dwelling within us richly, then expressed to one another in heartfelt singing, can do that.  If our song worship is not about the message, it is missing the mark.

So too with preaching.  A man can command the pulpit in one of our churches with all the skill of Apollos but not bring anybody closer to Jesus.  A sermon built on human tradition and political prejudice can be “not unscriptural” and still have nothing to say about the gospel.  The hearers of such a sermon may well amen every word without having brought their lives into submission to the Lord.

To succeed in carrying out God’s will in this evil time, we cannot abandon the word of Christ for any fleshly expedient, no matter how alluring.  Instead, we must focus everything we do:  singing, preaching, teaching, and personal work, more and more tightly on Jesus.  We must repeatedly proclaim His mercy as our Savior and His authority as our Lord.  If we want to bring others to Jesus, nothing but Jesus will do.

Most Christians are familiar with the twin descriptions of disciples in Matthew 5:13-16.  There, Jesus tells us that we are to be both the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  However, we’re not as quick to recognize that these two commandments are in tension.  The problem is that being salty has a tendency to make us less bright, and being bright tends to make us less salty.

The key attribute of saltiness is distinctiveness.  Christians are supposed to have a different savor than the people of the world do.  If we are adulterated so that we become like the people of the world, we have lost our savor, and we are useless for God’s purposes.

Universally, dedicated Christians are aware of this danger.  They see that exposure to worldliness will make them more worldly, so they avoid worldliness as much as they can.  Even outside of the assembly, their best friends are other strong Christians.  If they can, they will take jobs that allow them to work with brethren instead of worldly people.  They home-school their children or send them to private Christian schools, with the goal or at least the result that those children are insulated from worldliness as well.  By the time I was eight, I had already heard every cuss word in the book.  I don’t think my home-schooled eight-year-old daughter has.

In many ways, all of these are wise decisions, and I think brethren make them with the best of motives.  In fact, every one of those things is something I’ve done.  However, we have to recognize that all this protected saltiness can come at the cost of being a light.

Jesus says, after all, that we are supposed to be the light of the world, and it is precisely the world from which many Christians have isolated themselves.  In the midst of my Christian friends, Christian co-workers, and educational environment in which all the adults are Christians, I have no trouble going through an entire day without saying a single word to someone who is lost.  As a result, there are high-school kids with a bunch of friends in the world who bring 10 times as many lost people to our assemblies as I do.

The point here is not that we should avoid having Christian friends and Christian co-workers and Christian-friendly educational choices.  I think it’s hard to go to heaven without the first, and the second and third are at least beneficial.  However, we must admit that all that insulation from the world comes at a cost, and if we want to save the lost, we first must encounter the lost.  Salt that has lost its savor is useless, but so too is a light that spends all its time huddling under a basket with other lights.

Usually, the story of the Old Testament is a story of spiritual failure.  However, there are times when God’s people get it right.  One of these rare occasions appears in Nehemiah 8.  Immediately before this, Nehemiah has led the people to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem, and now they have all assembled in a square before the Water Gate to celebrate the Feast of Trumpets.  In their conduct, we see three things that we ought to imitate.

They Were Attentive to the Law

This chapter is filled with evidence that the Jews of this day cared about the Law.  In Nehemiah 8:1, they tell Ezra that now that they’re assembled, they want to hear him read the Law.  According to 8:3, they listen attentively to the reading of the Law from early morning to midday.  In 8:5, they stand when the scroll of the Law is opened and bow low in worship.  Finally, in 8:8, they listen to those who are explaining the Law until they all understand it.

At this point in Jewish history, most of the people are probably illiterate.  Additionally, they likely couldn’t afford to purchase a scroll of the Law even if they could read it.  They didn’t have a building in which to assemble to hear the Law; they just stood on the pavement.  In every one of these ways, our situation is better than theirs.  Our access to God’s word is so much easier.  Is our zeal for that word equal to theirs?

They Took the Law to Heart

Nehemiah 8:9-12 reports the reaction of the people to the reading.  They weep because they understand how far short they have fallen of God’s expectations.  However, a few verses later, we find them rejoicing, taking their strength from their joy in God.  For them, hearing God’s word is both a meaningful and an extremely emotional experience.

By contrast, all too many Christians today declare (either openly or by their behavior) that the word of God is borrring.  Frankly, that says a lot more about them than it does about the word.  We can’t truly have a heart for God unless we also have a heart for His revelation.  We too should be moved when we hear or read it.  It is no less beautiful, meaningful, and powerful today than it was in Nehemiah’s time.  However, if we want to find beauty, meaning, and power in it, we first must invest ourselves in its study.

They Restored the Practice of the Law

In Nehemiah 8:13-18, the people learn from the Law that they’re supposed to be celebrating the Feast of Booths (as set out in Leviticus 23:33-44), so they cut branches, construct booths of them, and live in them through the time of the feast.  Nehemiah notes that this festival had not been celebrated correctly since the days of Joshua, nearly a thousand years before.

We too should be zealous to obey every commandment of God, especially those commandments that long have been neglected.  We must beware of the danger of accumulating our set of “Church of Christ traditions”, things that we do because we have always done them, not because we are seeking to obey God’s will.  Like the Jews of Nehemiah’s time, we must compare our practice to God’s law and unflinchingly obey Him no matter what that demands of us.

Of all the leaders in the Bible, Nehemiah is one of my favorites.  He confronts a wide variety of problems, but through them all, he remains steadfast in his purpose, trusts God, and eventually achieves success. 

One of Nehemiah’s most revealing actions, though, is something that he does not do.  Nehemiah 6:10-13 tells the story.  At this point in the book, the work of rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem is nearly completed.  The enemies of the Jews, led by Tobiah, Sanballat, and Geshem, have already tried the threat of force, assassination, and a whispering campaign.  However, due to Nehemiah’s determination, none of these schemes have worked.

Their next attempt is even subtler.  Beginning in v. 10, Nehemiah visits the house of a prophet named Shemaiah.  Shemaiah reports that Nehemiah’s enemies are coming to kill him, so in order to save his life, Nehemiah needs to flee into the temple and bar the doors behind him.

Nehemiah reacts with outrage, and he does so for two reasons.  First, such cowardice would be exactly the opposite of the example that the people need.  Second, Nehemiah isn’t a priest.  He knows that he isn’t allowed to enter the temple, into which only the priests can go as part of their daily and yearly service.  In Nehemiah’s view, it would be better for him to die outside the temple than to flee into the temple and save his life.

At some point, Nehemiah realizes that Shemaiah has only said these things because Tobiah and Sanballat have paid him to do so.  However, whether we are faced with hired liars or not, Nehemiah’s resolution has much to teach us.  In our lives too, there are those who encourage disobedience to the law of God because it appears to be expedient.  These false counselors will advise us to reject God’s pattern for worship because you need a praise band up on stage in order to draw young people.  They’ll tell us that we should use anything from raffles to free food to attract those whom the gospel won’t attract, so that maybe they’ll get a little gospel on the side.

Though such advice appears wise to the world, it can only bring disaster to the kingdom of God.  First, it requires us to abandon our conviction that God’s way works.  I believe in the power of the gospel to touch hearts and change lives just as it did 2000 years ago.  I believe that the simple pattern of the New Testament will still please God and edify men as it did in the first century.  Why abandon the perfect wisdom of God for the wisdom of men, which has proven to be anything but perfect? 

Even if God’s way isn’t working anymore, even if we are living in a time like the time of Noah, there’s no point in using clever tricks to expose sinners to a powerless gospel.  If those who will have no interest in God come for the sake of free food, their interest will continue to be in free food and not in God.  They will remain unconverted.  Conversely, if the power of God can reach them, the free food is unnecessary.

No matter how threatening the times may seem to be, the example of Nehemiah shows us that the best course is to remain steadfast.  What is right always has been right and will continue to be right.  The ancient paths will lead us to success, but listening to Shemaiahs can only entice us into failure.

Nehemiah is one of the most determined and resourceful leaders that God’s people ever had, but one of the most impressive things that we see out of him is what he is thinking before he ever does anything.  In Nehemiah 1:1-3, he learns that the returned exiles in Jerusalem are in bad shape because the city still doesn’t have walls.  In 1:4-11, he entreats God to help him solve the problem.

Notice the pronoun there.  Nehemiah doesn’t say, “Lord, help those returned exiles get their act together.”  He doesn’t say, “Let my useless brother stop talking about the problem and start solving it.”  Instead, he acknowledges that this is a problem he can help with, and he asks God’s blessing on his own plans.

If there is any spirit that ought to be more widespread among the Lord’s people, this is it.  As a rule, even the best Christians are more inclined to complain about the problems of the church and others’ inactivity than they are to consider their own ways and ask what they can do about the problem themselves. 

What’s more, we’re often so used to exempting ourselves from criticism that we don’t even realize we’re doing it.  I’ve had many conversations through the years with brethren who see a weakness in the congregation (example:  “We don’t spend enough time with each other outside of worship services.”).  When I respond with a suggestion for how they can solve the problem (example:  “Why don’t you invite everybody over for a potluck after services sometime?”), with a staggering lack of self-awareness, they invariably begin to offer excuses about why they can’t help (example:  “I can’t do that!  I’m too busy.”). 

It’s the spiritual equivalent of buying a lottery ticket instead of getting a job.  You want the good result, but you don’t want to work to get there.  This mindset can only lead to a vicious cycle of inactivity and bitterness.  Everybody is pointing fingers at everybody else, nobody is doing anything, so everybody just gets angrier and angrier about everybody else’s inactivity. 

Rather than looking outward for solutions, all of us need to look inward and upward.  OK, so my congregation is imperfect.  Every congregation is.  What can I personally do about it?  What can I do to make assemblies more powerful, or connections between brethren stronger, or lost people more likely to obey the gospel? 

None of us can solve every problem a church has, but every one of us can solve some of them.  What’s more, just as a spirit of blame is contagious, so is a spirit of selflessness and hard work.  Other Christians won’t be motivated to serve by our hypocritical complaints about their uselessness, but they will be by our example of service.  The more we work, the more we invite others to work with us (another crucial spiritual skill that Nehemiah mastered), the more the Lord’s work will succeed.

When we see work that needs to be done, then, rather than blameshifting, let’s pray.  Like Nehemiah, let’s say, “Lord, show me how I can help, and give me the strength and courage to do it.”