Worldview

The situation is different from the one that confronted Nehemiah. We have cities that are overflowing. He had a city that was nearly empty. Nevertheless, there are surprising similarities. Nehemiah wanted to populate Jerusalem. We need to populate our largely secular cities with Christians in order to reach this vast urban majority for Jesus Christ.

At first glance, the list of names and places in Nehemiah 11 seems even more tedious and uninteresting than the earlier lists in chapters 3, 7 and 10. But the list actually reflects a great strategy. It highlights several parts of Nehemiah’s plan.

The fourth characteristic of Nehemiah’s effort to revitalize Jerusalem was that he had a religious base. The chapter begins with an account of how one in ten Jewish lay persons was chosen to relocate, but little is said about them. The bulk of the chapter (and the next chapter) detail the families of priests, Levites and other religious leaders who settled in the city. The emphasis is there.

If we can model attractive Christian community in a Christian or church setting, we can model it in other environments, as Christians in business show what it is to have a Christ-centered business, Christians in education show what it is educate in a Christian way, politicians act as Christian politicians, and so on in the other professions.

This leads to the third necessary ingredient for an effective Christian presence in the city. Not only must we be in the city and be a community, we must also be Bible-directed. In other words, we must be the kind of community God wants us to be. What kind of a community is that? This is a big subject, of course, but a short statement of it is in Micah: “What does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).