When the Gospel Is Tested Inside the Church
Nehemiah 5:1–5
One of the great surprises of Nehemiah chapter 5 is not where the trouble comes from, but who causes it. The external enemies are loud and threatening, yet the real danger to God’s work arises from within the community itself. God’s own people begin exploiting one another.
The poor cry out. Families are starving. Land is mortgaged. Children are sold into slavery. And all of this is happening among people who know God’s Word, who have experienced God’s deliverance, and who are actively engaged in God’s mission.
Nehemiah 5 reminds us that one of the clearest evidences of the gospel at work is not what we claim to believe, but how we treat one another. The issue in Jerusalem was not a lack of engagement in work; it was a failure to live in step with grace. The people who had been redeemed from slavery were now enslaving their own brothers and sisters.
This chapter confronts a sobering truth: it is possible to be busy with God’s work while contradicting God’s grace. You cannot build God’s kingdom while trampling God’s people. You cannot sing about redemption while practising exploitation.
The outcry in Nehemiah 5 exposes a gospel contradiction. Greed fractures relationships. Injustice undermines worship. And when grace does not shape how we use power, money, and influence, the mission of God always suffers.
For us today, the question is deeply personal. Where might the gospel we profess be contradicted by the way we treat others — financially, relationally, emotionally, or spiritually? Nehemiah 5 invites us to stop looking outward at opposition and instead examine whether grace has truly taken root in our hearts.