When Israel gathers to hear the book of Moses read, the people begin to weep. Nehemiah exhorts them, “This day is holy to Yahweh your God; do not mourn or weep.”
Ezra then reads the law, the Levites explain it, and the people go out for a “great rejoicing,” because “they understood the words which had been made known to them” (Nehemiah 8:9-12). Understanding produces joy.
How often do pastors, or parents, implicitly assume that if people really understood what they were saying they would mourn? How often do our worship services have the opposite effect – to make joyful people sad?
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Restoring Man at Notre Dame
It is fascinating to be an outsider on the inside of an institution going through times of…
Deliver Us from Evil
In a recent New York Times article entitled “Freedom With a Side of Guilt: How Food Delivery…
Natural Law Needs Revelation
Natural law theory teaches that God embedded a teleological moral order in the world, such that things…
