Pastor Steve

The easiest way to oppose something you do not like is to ridicule it, and this is the first thing Sanballat and Tobiah did. In Nehemiah 4 the text is vivid at this point, showing how Sanballat got Tobiah, his associates, and the army of Samaria together and made fun of the Jews in what…

In the fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters of Nehemiah, we see how he dealt successfully with opposition. Opposition is almost always caused by success and not failure. The first thing we should know, if we are trying to do something worthwhile and are being opposed, is that it is because we are achieving something. We…

In Nehemiah chapter three, we see two more things that need to be said about Nehemiah’s relationship to his work. First, he coordinated the effort. He not only divided the task into manageable units and then assigned the right people to each part but also fit the whole together so there were no gaps and…

After dividing the project of rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem into sections, Nehemiah made his assignments. This is what chapter 3 is primarily about. It is a list of those who rebuilt the gates and each adjoining section of the walls. Notice first, that Nehemiah delegated the authority. Nothing in the chapter makes a specific…

When faced with a large task many managers do not know where to begin. They look at the looming task ahead and attempt to address several facets at the same time. Soon they fail! Nehemiah correctly saw the project of rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls as massive. However, as we follow Nehemiah in chapter three we notice…

In humor, as every really funny person knows, timing is everything. A punch line badly timed ruins the joke, while a line rightly timed makes it. In a list of leadership skills, timing may not quite be everything, as it is in comedy, but it is important. Nehemiah seems to have been aware of this…