August 18, 2010 – Nehemiah 5

These readings in Nehemiah really bring up a lot of things we see in our world today.  People that are having hard times being dumped on even more by those that have.  How many stories do we read about high-up execs that run businesses into the ground only to get millions of dollars to quite.  Do we see them saying, “we were wrong, here use this money for the people that lost their jobs.”  Not in any story I have read.  And I know that they must have done something to get the job, at least in some cases, but it sounds like these men were only giving out loans.  Not unreasonable loans, just loans.  Nehemiah is saying that in a time of struggle they needed to work together.  If someone needed something, you give, you don’t loan.  I can hear the argument that businesses will not survive being generous.  I would have you look at what greed has done to our economy and ask you if things would have been worse if people were more generous.