Here We Go Again: Israel and the Promises They Didn’t Keep

In Nehemiah 9, we read a heartfelt, sincere prayer and confession from the Israelites who had returned from exile. They go into great detail about their corporate sins as they recount God’s faithfulness, beginning with Abram and God’s “covenant with him to give to his descendants the Promised Land (Nehemiah 9:8, NIV). They confess their ancestors’ unfaithfulness from the exodus through the present, highlighting their arrogance, idolatry, and persistence in doing evil while God remained faithful.

They close their prayer with a promise:

“In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it.”

Nehemiah 9:38 (NIV)

And in Nehemiah 10, we’re given a list of 84 men—many representing heads of families and/or whole ancestral courses or divisions of priests—who signed the document. The rest of the population joined them:

“The rest of the people—priests, Levites, gatekeepers, musicians, temple servants and all who separated themselves from the neighboring peoples for the sake of the Law of God, together with their wives and all their sons and daughters who are able to understand—all these now join their fellow Israelites the nobles, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the Law of God given through Moses the servant of God and to obey carefully all the commands, regulations and decrees of the LORD our Lord.

Nehemiah 10:28-29 (NIV)

This wasn’t Johnny promising he wouldn’t pick on his little brother anymore—these people were sincere enough to “bind themselves with a curse and an oath—concluding, ‘We will not neglect the house of our God ‘” (Nehemiah 10:39, NIV).

And yet, the book of Nehemiah closes with Nehemiah demanding, “Why is the house of God neglected?” (Nehemiah 13:11, NIV).

If you’re like me, you’re probably shaking your head in disgust because this isn’t the first time Israel’s made a promise to “return” to the Lord and broken it. In fact, from Exodus through the promise in Nehemiah 9, I count at least 10 times when Israel has begged for forgiveness, pleading, “We’ll never do *it* again,” only to do *it* again.

It’s enough to make anyone shake their head in disgust.

Well, if we weren’t just like them.

Does Close Reading Always Pay Off?

I’ve always loved reading. My parents got me hooked on books at a very young age to help with a lazy eye. I must have been about three or four. Because I was born in the summer, I was one of the youngest kids in my grade. Once I began reading, I didn’t stop. I devoured books like candy, except I never got sick from reading too much!

Was Thomas the Only Doubter?

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “Doubting Thomas.” This term describes a skeptic who won’t believe something until they have direct physical evidence or a personal experience. This expression is curious. It’s not only unjustified; it’s also inaccurate because Thomas wasn’t the only disciple who doubted that Jesus had risen until he had “proof.”

This Is What I Noticed in Luke 22

I noticed a few things while reading Luke 22 today. Although it’s not isolated to Luke, I thought about the disciples preparing the Passover meal. I thought that women usually prepared the meals, but Jesus asked Peter and John:

Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.”

Luke 22:8 (NIV)

Curiously, women usually did prepare the meals, but because Passover was a household observance (Exodus 12:3-11), families could prepare and eat the meal together. Typically, the Passover meal involved more than cooking; it required obtaining and preparing the lamb, arranging the setting, and coordinating the meal.

Another point of note is the man carrying the water jar:

He replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, and say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’

Luke 22:10-11 (NIV)

Women usually carried the water. This is evident from the stories of Isaac and Rebekah as well as the woman at the well. However, in this case, a man carried it. A man carrying the water instead of a woman suggests (to me) that people were already living out the “One in Christ” premise that there’s no Jew or Gentile, etc. Everyone is free to serve the Lord and each other.

Once the Passover meal began, Jesus said a curious thing about it: