⁶ When I heard their complaints, I was very angry. ⁷ After thinking it over, I spoke out against these nobles and officials. I told them, “You are hurting your own relatives by charging interest when they borrow money!” Then I called a public meeting to deal with the problem.

⁸ At the meeting I said to them, “We are doing all we can to redeem our Jewish relatives who have had to sell themselves to pagan foreigners, but you are selling them back into slavery again. How often must we redeem them?” And they had nothing to say in their defense.

⁹ Then I pressed further, “What you are doing is not right! Should you not walk in the fear of our God in order to avoid being mocked by enemy nations? ¹⁰ I myself, as well as my brothers and my workers, have been lending the people money and grain, but now let us stop this business of charging interest. ¹¹ You must restore their fields, vineyards, olive groves, and homes to them this very day. And repay the interest you charged when you lent them money, grain, new wine, and olive oil.”

Nehemiah 5:6-11 (NLT)

Nehemiah’s  response

Nehemiah was “fire spittin’ mad” when he heard these accusations (yesterday). But, before giving a knee-jerk response, he took some time to reflect, to “think it over”. How often do we see a situation, judge that it’s not right, and start shooting before we ask questions? My kids can testify that I’ve gotten myself into lots of trouble that way. Nehemiah probably consulted the law, maybe the priests, and of course, prayed. Then he “let ‘em have it – both barrels”.

Call a spade a spade

Nehemiah didn’t mince words, he called the sin for what it was. It was so ironic – the rich Jews were selling the Jews who had been redeemed from captivity back into slavery! How? By charging interest – something the law clearly said not to do. (Exodus 22:25. Here’s more on the topic.) He not only called them out, he gave them specific instrustructions on how to repent.

Church discipline

In our churches today, do we call out sin for what it is? Now we have to be careful here and not go to the extreme – either neglecting this responsibility or going too far. The Jew’s sin was public so it required public rebuke. In Matthew 18:15-17 Jesus tells us how to confront a believer who is sinning and in Matthew 7:3–5, He warns us to consider our own sin before we point out other’s sin. Yet we still have this responsibility. As gotquestions.org points out, “The purity of His church is of utmost importance to Him. People who want to claim His name while defiling His reputation must be rebuked, not overlooked or excused.”