Read Nehemiah 5:6-8 (see also Exod. 21:2-7). Why does Nehemiah react in anger?

However difficult for us to grasp today, slavery was a cultural norm in the ancient world. A parent could either become a slave himself/herself or sell a child. Socially and legally, the parents had the right to sell their sons and daughters.

Slavery?

However, since God is all about giving freedom, He regulated the practice in Israel by requiring creditors to release their slaves every seven years. Thus God protected people from becoming permanent slaves and demonstrated His desire for people to live freely.

Although lending was permitted by the law, charging interest was not (for biblical regulations against usury, see Exod. 22:25-27; Lev. 25:36-37; Deut. 23:19-20). And yet, the interest that the lenders charged was small compared to what the nations around them charged. They were asked to pay one percent every month. Mesopotamian texts from the 7th century show interest of 50 percent for silver and 100 percent for grain annually. Thus, the 12 percent interest per year was low compared to the practice of the countries in Mesopotamia. But overall, according to God’s Word, the only thing the creditors did wrong was to charge interest (Neh. 5:10), and interestingly, the people didn’t even mention that in their grievance. Everything else was within the social norm as well as within the provisions of the law. So why is Nehemiah “very angry”? Remarkably, he doesn’t act right away, but gives the matter some serious thought.

The fact that Nehemiah deals with the issue so decisively is very admirable. He doesn’t leave a grievance alone just because it doesn’t technically break the law or is socially acceptable, even “nice” compared to the practices of the land. It was the spirit of the law that was transgressed in this situation. Especially during a time of economic hardship, it was the duty of the people to help each other. God is on the side of the oppressed and needy, and He had to commission prophets to speak against the evils and violence committed against the poor.

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Read Nehemiah 5:1-5. What is happening here? What are the people crying out against?

The Jewish community seems to be united under Nehemiah’s leadership against the outside pressures. But all is not well within the nation that is standing up to persecution and defending itself from foreign assaults. Despite the outward appearance of toughness and cohesive efforts against the enemy, the community is broken inside.

People’s Grievance

The leaders and the rich have been using the poor and underprivileged for their own gain, and the situation has become so bad that the families are crying out for relief. Some families were saying that they did not have any food to feed their children; some were crying out that because of a famine they had mortgaged their property and now had nothing; other families moaned that they had to borrow money for the Persian tax and even their children were slaves.

It appears that the main culprit of the trouble was a famine and tax payments that caused the poorer families to seek help from their neighbors. The Persian government required a tax of 350 talents of silver annually from the province of Judah (see note on Neh. 5:1-5 in the Andrews Study Bible, p. 598). If a person couldn’t pay the designated portion of the mandatory tax, the family would usually mortgage their property or borrow money first. If, however, they couldn’t earn the money the next year, then they had to do something about the debt they now owed. Usually debt slavery was the next option. They had already lost their land, and now they had to send someone from the family, usually children, to be in the service of the creditor in order to work off the debt.

There are times in life when we find ourselves in trouble because of the consequences of our own actions; of course, there are also times when we end up sick or in financial straits due to no fault of our own. The story above recounts a time when government policies disadvantaged the people, leading to intensified poverty. They were caught in the spiral of deepening poverty, with no way out.

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Image © Pacific Press

Read for This Week’s Study: Neh. 5:1-5; Exod. 21:2-7; Micah 6:8; Neh. 5:7-12; Deut. 23:21-23; Neh. 5:14-19.

Memory Text: “Restore now to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive groves, and their houses, also a hundredth of the money and the grain, the new wine and the oil, that you have charged them” (Nehemiah 5:11, NKJV).

To this day, we humans struggle with the question of wealth, poverty, and the gap between the rich and the poor and what can be done about it. Yes, Jesus said that “you have the poor with you always” (Matt. 26:11, NKJV), but that’s hardly an excuse to do nothing about helping them. On the contrary, Scripture admonishes us to do our part to help. We can barely call ourselves Christians otherwise.

How fascinating, too, that even amid the trials and tribulations of the returned exiles in rebuilding Jerusalem, this theme appears, not just that of poverty and the poor, but that of the even more problematic question of the rich oppressing the poor. This was a problem before the exile, and now, even back in their own land, it reappears.

This week we will see another manifestation of this age-old theme, and how Nehemiah worked to deal with it. As we will see, what made this oppression even worse was that it was being done within “the letter of the law”, so to speak, a powerful example of how we need to be careful not to let rules and regulations become an end in and of themselves rather than a means to an end, which is to reflect the character of Jesus.

Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, November 2.

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In my ministry I have met people who claim the Adventist church is Babylon. I have also met people who think the Adventist church is infallible. Both ideas are wrong. The Adventist church is not Babylon, but it is not infallible either. Just because the Adventist  church is not Babylon does not mean it does not make mistakes. Remember at the cross it was not Babylon crying out “Crucify Him!” It was God’s chosen remnant people. The commander of the Lord’s army realized the fallibility of God’s chosen people when He met Joshua one day. 

When Joshua was near the town of Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with sword in hand. Joshua went up to him and demanded, “Are you friend or foe?” “Neither one,” he replied. “I am the commander of the Lord’s army.” Joshua 5:13-14 NLT

“Neither one?” Seems like the Commander was taking a neutral stance on the situation. We can’t assume just because we are God’s chosen people that He is always on our side. Sometimes we are right. Sometimes we are wrong. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes our foes do the right thing. God loves everyone in the world, not just us. I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who is credited with saying, “The question is not if God is on my side but rather if I’m on His.” 

Throughout history God had to punish His own people. Today when people tell me how “corrupt” the church has become, I ask them, when was the church ever perfect? When harlots got their business at the temple doors during Eli’s day? When God had to let Babylon destroy His holy nation because of their habitual apostasy and idolatry?  When people tell me the Adventist church has strayed too far from what it used to be, and we need to go back to how it was in the days of Ellen White, I ask them, “You mean when God had to destroy the Adventist publishing house with fire because they would not follow inspired counsel?” 

In Ezra’s day it was no different. 

When these things had been done, the Jewish leaders came to me and said, “Many of the people of Israel, and even some of the priests and Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the other peoples living in the land. They have taken up the detestable practices of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites. For the men of Israel have married women from these people and have taken them as wives for their sons. So the holy race has become polluted by these mixed marriages. Worse yet, the leaders and officials have led the way in this outrage.” Ezra 9:1-2 NLT 

When the leaders and the majority of those in the church fall away from the truth no one detects it as apostasy because the apostasy becomes mainstream. Therefore apostasy looks normal. The only way to detect apostasy is to stop looking at the leaders and the majority, and look at the Word of God.

Are you reading your Bible?

Years ago I attended a health seminar, where a doctor told us that many  Americans are obese and are close to having a heart attack. They don’t understand how unhealthy they are because they are no more obese than everyone around them, not realizing everyone around them is also on the verge of a heart attack. Just because obesity is mainstream in American culture does not make it healthy or any less deadly. It is the same with sin in the church. 

In Ezra’s day there was a reformation as they stopped looking at those around them as role models and began comparing themselves to the Word of God. So today, we can have a reformation like never before as we compare ourselves to God’s Word instead of each other. In Daniel 9 Daniel confesses that his people have corporately sinned, and included himself as part of the sin problem. Nehemiah as well as Ezra brought about a great reformation, but even Nehemiah saw himself as part of the sin problem  when he prayed, 

Yes, even my own family and I have sinned! Nehemiah 1:6 NLT 

While praying for reformation in the church we must confess our individual sins as well as the sins of the church. We can’t divide the church into camps and then say God is on my camp’s side, because God is not choosing sides today anymore than He was in Joshua’s day.  Sometimes we are right. Sometimes we are wrong. That goes for all of us. We are all fallible. We all make mistakes. That is why Jesus never told us to follow Christian leaders. He told us to follow Him. For true reformation we must recognize our own guilt and apostasy. We must not set ourselves or anyone else up as an example to follow. We must follow Jesus and His Word alone. 

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Money for Missionaries

By Horacio Rizzo

The plan was ambitious: Send 25 missionary couples from South America to share the gospel in the countries of the 10/40 window.

Image © Pacific Press

I listened intently as Erton Köhler, president of the South American Division, presented the “Missionaries to the World” initiative to 80 Seventh-day Adventist leaders from across South America at the division’s headquarters in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, in 2014.

Pastor Köhler spoke about the immense challenges that the Adventist Church has faced in the Middle East, and he mentioned a lack of financial and human resources. Our division could help by sending 25 married couples and covering all their expenses, including airfare, food, and insurance, for five-year terms.

Pastor Köhler invited us to support the initiative financially. Each of us served as the president of a conference or mission in the South American Division. I was the president of the Central West Argentine Mission, a small territory with little money. We were dependent on the Argentina Union Conference to make ends meet.

Pastor Köhler suggested that our contribution be determined by how many members we had.

But not all conferences and missions have the same financial situation, I thought. Another problem was a difference between official church membership and the number who attend church regularly. In my mission, official membership was 10,000 people but, in reality, only 5,000 members went to church every Sabbath.

I had to make a pledge. My heart was pounded as I considered the issue. I knew the suggested contribution was high compared to the size of our budget. The mission treasurer was not with me to ask whether we could afford it. I didn’t have much time to weigh the matter.

With a prayer of faith, I pledged to donate the suggested amount for a territory with 10,000 members.

Then I texted the treasurer, “This is what we have to do”.

He immediately texted back, “OK”. He also wanted to support the project.

Two weeks later, a big surprise awaited me in my office. A church member unexpectedly sold a property and returned a large tithe. The tithe amounted to three times more than the money that we had given to the division’s missionary initiative!

I firmly believe that the first person who benefits from the act of giving is the giver. The South American Division’s missionary initiative ended up blessing church members in the Central West Argentine Mission most of all.

Horacio Rizzo, left, served as president of the Central West Argentine Mission for nearly three years before being appointed president of River Plate Adventist University in Argentina in 2016. Three married couples who graduated from the university serve as missionaries in the “Missionaries to the World” initiative.

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

All Rights Reserved. No part of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide may be edited, altered, modified, adapted, translated, reproduced, or published by any person or entity without prior written authorization from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

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