“So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of the month Elul, in fifty-two days.” (Nehemiah 6:15 NASB2020)
At first glance perhaps this doesn’t have much impact on us. But when we consider what they were doing, we realize what a great achievement this statement represents. In under two months the Jews who had returned from exile to Jerusalem had rebuilt the wall that surrounded the city.
This was not a one-stone wide wall. For me, one of the impressive sights in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem today is seeing the foundation of the wall that Hezekiah had built for Jerusalem’s defense. It is seven meters (23 feet) thick and at places preserved to a height of 3.3 meters (almost 11 feet). It is thought that its real height was around 8 meters (26 feet). It may be that this stretch of wall is mentioned in Nehemiah 3:8-9. That is not a wall that could be built in a day or very quickly! It wasn’t just this one section but a rebuilding of the wall that surrounded the entire city of Jerusalem.
This was accomplished through what seems to have been almost constant opposition and threats from those who lived in the area. They tried any means they could to get Nehemiah and the Jews to stop work on the wall – and all without success. Nehemiah was not to be dissuaded from the task before him.
How did a group of people who had been exiles manage to accomplish such a Herculean feat in such a short time? The answer to this question is simple and applicable to us today. This is what was recorded as they were working on the wall.
“So we rebuilt the wall, and the entire wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.” (Nehemiah 4:6)
Much can be accomplished when a group of people decide to work together to get it done. I’ve witnessed this over the past week as we moved out of our house. Our house sold much more rapidly than we anticipated (we did not even advertise). The problem we had was that the buyer needed to get out of his house and our new house is not completed. From the offer to purchase to moving out was around four weeks. How were we going to accomplish all that needed to be sorted through, packed, stored, and the house cleaned in such a short time? We had a group of people helping us who had a mind to work. After cleaning years of accumulation, packers came in and packed everything is just over a day. They then moved our belongings to a storage facility in a day. Then a group of Christian friends came to help us and we cleaned the house from top to bottom in a day.
Within a congregation this is what needs to be happening as well. If people have a mind to work much can be accomplished.
From my observation there are at least three types of people in a congregation.
- There are those who complain that nothing is being done – and they are also doing nothing (it is always someone else’s responsibility!).
- There are those who do something but think everyone should be doing exactly what they are doing.
- Then there are those who are willing to use the abilities with which God has blessed them to complement the abilities of others.
It is this latter group that gets the work done. Like those in Nehemiah’s day, all worked but everyone did what they could do best. Like those helping us move, all didn’t do the same thing but by all working together the job was done.
As Solomon looked back over his life when he was old, he reached this conclusion: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). If we would only learn this simple message and develop a mind to work, to do what we can in the Lord’s service, more could be accomplished.