Nehemiah 10–11
It is one thing to attend a feast, sing praises to God, and hear the Bible read and explained, and quite something else to commit yourself to obey the will of God. The eighty-four men who put their seal to the covenant wanted God and the people to know that they were serious about obedience. These names represented whole families (10:28), so that more people were involved in this solemn commitment than are named in chapter
Their dedication was public, and it was also specific and included obedience with regard to marriage (10:30), the Sabbath and the Sabbatical year (
“Most church members live so far below the standard, you’d have to backslide to be in fellowship. We are so subnormal that if we were to become normal, people would think we were abnormal.”
Vance Havner