Resolving Conflicts Series

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How to resolve our conflicts?

One of the most common and unfortunate things dealing with people in conflict. We have stories of conflicts at the workplace, conflicts at home, conflicts in the society, and sadly conflicts also at church.

Conflict with others can result in frustration, hopelessness, dissatisfaction in life, depression, and general unhappiness in people. Every one of us goes through conflict with others at different points of life.

Conflicts are inevitable in this fallen world but there is a scriptural way to deal with them.

Joke: An Englishman was seated on a train between two ladies arguing about the window. One claimed that she would die of heatstroke if the window stayed closed. The other said she would expire of pneumonia if it was opened. Later the ladies called the conductor, who didn’t know how to resolve the conflict. Finally, the gentleman spoke up, “First, open the window. That will kill the one. Then close it. That will kill the other. Then we will have peace.”

We are going to look at this chapter in three sections.

The Protest. Nehemiah 5:1-5

The Gathering. Nehemiah 5:6-13

The Perfect Model. Nehemiah 5:14-19

Brief Background:

In Nehemiah chapter 1, Nehemiah was in Persia and he gets word that his city wall back in Jerusalem is in ruins. He became very burdened with the news and starts to pray about it. He came to the king with a sad look on his face and that was very challenging for Nehemiah because he could not only have lost his job but also his life. However, the king was gracious to Nehemiah and God was dealing in this situation. The king allowed Nehemiah to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls of the city.

When Nehemiah gets to Jerusalem, he inspects the walls and sees that the walls are in ruins. Then he motivates his people and starts the construction on the wall.

The last time we saw Nehemiah 4. Nehemiah faced attacks from 4 local and regional rulers around them who were enemies of Israel. They did not want the walls of Jerusalem to be rebuilt.

Nehemiah prayed to the God of Israel and organized people for construction, protection, and battle.

In the morning the workers were doing heavy labor. They removed thousands of tons of rubble, basket-by-basket and then brought stones and built the wall. They were exhausted. Now, Nehemiah ordered that all the workers spend their night in the city to watch against the enemies, and not go home even overnight. So they were working 24×7.

In this background comes Nehemiah 5. Nehemiah’s measures definitely helped against the enemies but in chapter 5, a new set of problems come to light.

Verse 1 of chapter 5 jumps right into the problem.

Nehemiah 5:1

Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their fellow Jews.

It is very common that when someone deals with external stress or problem, you get so exhausted that internal stress begins to surface.

The men were actually working without salary on the wall. So they have lost out on their income and working voluntarily for 52 days. Can you imagine working without a salary for 2 months? While the men were working on the walls, it was the women who took care of the fields. So the women experienced the problem in real-time in the fields.

Nehemiah 5:2-5

2 Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.” 3 Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our homes to get grain during the famine.” 4 Still others were saying, “We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards. 5 Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our fellow Jews and though our children are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless because our fields and our vineyards belong to others.”

The Problems Faced By The People

1. No food to eat

2. Properties and fields were mortgaged for grain

3. High taxation by the Persian government

4. Children became bonded labor

When we see the world today, we are still facing these problems. Scarcity of food and medical facilities in the world. Corona scare has pushed up the rate of sanitizers. Now is the time the companies should be giving discounted sanitizers. This is how the rich exploit the poor.

But the problem with the Jewish people was that their own people were doing this injustice to them. What we read here is a typical case of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.