Profiteering or People?
Nehemiah 5:1 And there was a great outcry of the people and their wives against their Jewish brethren.

An interesting dilemma occurs right in the middle of what was a long (70+ years) awaited national restoration. In the midst of progress and momentum comes a complaint. It would, as often the case, be easy for the nobility and the “movers and shakers” of society to make little of the complaint insisting that the people “stop whining”, yet one God fearing man changed all that. He viewed life biblically, ordering his life on God’s declaration and not culturally accepted norms. He insisted on showing the world in both personal integrity and public insistence among God’s leaders, that God’s ways were the right ways, the best way in a sin infested world. Nehemiah was his name.

Now the complaint (found in Neh. 5:1-5) basically showed how the burden of paying interest had placed people in oppression, bondage, dept, which was crippling their ability to survive and creating instability in the much needed restoration. This exploitation via taking of interest from fellow brothers was a much accepted practice of profit making, so accepted that there was no shame in the money makers making money on the national recovery efforts, as depicted in verse 8.

… "As far as possible, we have bought back our Jewish brothers who were sold to the Gentiles. Now you are selling your brothers, only for them to be sold back to us!" They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say.

Nehemiah tackled the issue of exacting interest from fellow countryman. This is a sticky issue because it strikes right at the core of most people’s drive to possess and acquire in the easiest way possible. It challenges culturally accepted norms, collegiate instruction, and corporate schemes. At the heart of the issue is one’s own personal security without the necessary concern or compassion for others. Exacting interest from fellow brothers was placing profits above people. It happened then, and it happens today.

Nehemiah made a great protest exposing the practice and appealing to the fact that God had a standard and the Jews were to be the standard bearers. (references: Leviticus 25:36; Psalm 15:5; Proverbs 28:8 ; Ezekiel 18: 8, 13, 17; Ezekiel 22: 12)

They were the living declaration of the sovereign God expressed in ordering their lives according to His decrees. This ordering of life would demonstrate to the observing world the reality of God, providing and opportunity to tell of His greatness and goodness to inquiring minds. But not when His standards are reduced to rubbish just like the walls of the city. Nehemiah was building walls that were more than brick and mortar; he was repairing the breach in biblical living among God’s people.

What does this have to do with us who are not Jews? Do we label ourselves as God’s children and yet casually operate our affairs based on culturally acceptable standards? Is our whole system corrupt and we shy away from confronting it because we have conformed to it?

It is easy to site cases of indulgent living in the current housing debacle, yet is the principle of compound complex interest really biblical? Do we fear challenging this one item because we equally get rewarded by it in our 401k’s? Will we go beyond the norm to live biblically based, Christ-like compassionate lives in practice, even if it disrupts our financial life? Walls don’t get rebuilt when we place profit above people.

Chris Gilliam © 2009