Issue 477
Have you noticed how many different factors come into play when you try to get things done? No doubt you have discovered that, if two parties have differing views on the meaning of honesty then doing a deal becomes more complex. If several team members have a different view on what is an acceptable level of risk, then decision making becomes protracted. Pick your issue; handling of budgets, conservative or liberal, vision or caution, not to mention personality. All these play their part in the transactions we enter into. This is true within our teams or between businesses or clients. Any field where arrangements need to be settled have their complicated extras which inhibit or facilitate the process. In a sustained, dramatic review of status a prophet named Amos quotes the words that he wants them to hear from God himself: “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” There you have a proverbial, almost poetic, description of the challenge of deal making. How can two walk together without agreement? You will have already experienced this in your work. As an amazing worker in the Old Testament draws his journal to a close, he is forced to return to this same issue. He has encountered it before and all the people had pledged themselves to corporate action. Nehemiah now finds men of Judah marrying outside of Judah. So angry was he that he rebuked them, called curses on them, beat them and pulled out their hair! These are extreme reactions. There is a ruthlessness about them. What on earth was he thinking? I want to eliminate some thoughts so we can find more light. Nehemiah, nor anyone else, could argue that mixed race or mixed culture marriages were sinful. He was not a racist nor an imperialist. He, nor we, cannot argue that so called mixed marriages could never work or succeed. He followed a God who defined Himself as love. Love can make relationships happy and successful. In fact, if you’re prepared to be honest and face reality, non-mixed marriages sometimes fail. There are parts of the world where the divorce rate is 50% among Christians. So what is he thinking? What’s on his mind? I want to propose two issues which surface. First is the matter of agreement. Nehemiah was concerned that there be agreement on the big issues. Imagine how hard it is to function if you’re not in agreement on which God you serve. Imagine the same with language. Nehemiah saw a principle of agreement which would be very difficult to uphold on the smaller matters if the big issues were not agreed. Second I suggest it had to do with legacy. The people of God were not just a collection of individuals but a corporate group entrusted with a revelation from God. Part of their agreement (covenant) with their God was to preserve that revelation and to pass it from generation to generation. They did not just act as individuals. They were part of a body. This is why you see Nehemiah praying and confessing sins of his forefathers. They were connected. To marry outside of that would risk losing the revelation by dilution and confusion of language (one key carrier of revelation). The people of God were keepers of the language of God in order to prepare for the living word to arrive. That makes more sense. It’s not racism, imperialism, misogyny or arrogance, it is about agreement, personal and corporate. Take it back to work and you will see why the concept of the unequal yolk does not make sense. If you try to do business with someone whose values are so far from yours, it will be difficult. You’re not just an individual. You are a member of God’s people, in agreement with God himself. Nehemiah is advocating very careful, humble, wise and responsible choices of partners. Check out for yourself how the creation of alliances, mergers, acquisitions, and business partners or even clients always impacts corporate values and identity. Further it promotes or inhibits the ability to make decisions. Nehemiah’s mind was a mind which realised the importance of playing out the agreement with the divine in the deals with people. I hope you’ll agree. Bible Section Nehemiah 13:23-28 Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. 24 Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples, and did not know how to speak the language of Judah. 25 I rebuked them and called curses down on them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath in God’s name and said: “You are not to give your daughters in marriage to their sons, nor are you to take their daughters in marriage for your sons or for yourselves. 26 Was it not because of marriages like these that Solomon king of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel, but even he was led into sin by foreign women. 27 Must we hear now that you too are doing all this terrible wickedness and are being unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women?” 28 One of the sons of Joiada son of Eliashib the high priest was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite. And I drove him away from me.
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Geoff Shattock
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