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
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
