Ezra and the Governator

We have continued our study in Ezra and Nehemiah – looking at the description of how God does his work. I find there are many imbalances in our hearts. People think that when God is at work, everything runs smoothly. People think when God is at work, you should not ever have to go to court for legal action. People think that when God is at work, there is no need for leadership – or there are super star leaders.

Last week we looked at how God works through leaders:

The leaders in Ezra-Nehemiah are multiple, but the prejudice of our society leads us to study Nehemiah and ignore the others. In reality, there were three projects in these books – rebuilding the temple, re-teaching the law, and reinhabiting Jerusalem.

There were also three ways God worked through leaders. The temple was built through a team of prophets, a priest, and a king. The law was re-taught by a scholar named Ezra. The walls were rebuilt by the ancient equivalent of the Governator.

All were used of God. All had limited gifts that were suited to the purposes of God. Nehemiah is the most colorful – he is blunt, practical, pious, and violent (he pulls out their beards, curses them, and strikes them when they sin – sounds like someone being critiqued in the blogosphere!). See Nehemiah 13:25!  Ezra was a scholar but also courageous -- calling the people to repent of marriages to pagans.

What we considered is that leadership is necessary. God is not an endorser of democracy. He works through leaders.  There is no "round table" in the Bible.

We considered that leadership was in submission to God. God’s leaders are utterly unoriginal in content and purpose. They are under God’s word.

We considered that leadership was diverse and it is wrong to compare or idealize one form over another. Nehemiah is not the biblical model of leadership but lots of books have been written about him because he looks like a CEO.

We considered that human leadership is just that – human. Human leaders are used by God to move people forward, but they never fully succeed. In the end of these stories, the people have built the temple and the walls -- and sin is still at work. That’s because Nehemiah and Ezra and Jeshua and Zerubabbel were all sinners and died. They could not stop sin at its source.  They did work that was pleasing to God and God delighted in it -- but the final work was not yet done.  The last chapters of Ezra and Nehemiah are not designed to make us despair but to cause us to hunger for the day when the final and glorious Messiah will come and be the last leader of his people.

Comments

[Sarah]

Certainly when we view leadership in that context, it is very humbling. It's not about us. I will end, and things will not be perfect. And even more than that, I'm not perfect. I can be used by God, yes, but at the same time I am an imperfect person. It's a very scary thing, as a perfectionist, to think about.