Nehemiah 11:1-2 – We must populate the Kingdom of God

In Nehemiah 7:4, we were already told that the city of Jerusalem was sparely populated. But in between this verse and Nehemiah 11, the author departed from talking about the population to deal with the more important subject of being faithful to the law given by their God. In those chapters in between, the people were reminded to be faithful to the covenant law God gave through Moses. God’s faithful dealing with their ancestor was compared to their ancestor's unfaithfulness. Their waywardness was bought up to tell those who had returned from exile not to emulate their forefathers. So between Nehemiah 7:4, the law of Moses was brought into focus. Having dealt with that, Nehemiah 11 returned to deal with the sparsely populated Jerusalem.   

This city according to Nehemiah 11:1 was mainly inhabited by the leaders. The rest of the population was scattered all over the country other than Jerusalem. Something had to be done to populate it to ensure its stability. So lots were cast to bring one out of every ten families to settle in this holy city. Verse 2 tells us that there was a group of men though not cast by lots volunteered to come and dwell in  Jerusalem. So the people blessed these volunteers.

Why was it important to populate Jerusalem? To help Jerusalem be restored to its former glory she had to be populated. How could a place depleted of people be great? It was good that the leaders had set the example to stay there. But more people were needed to make it a thriving city. The temple and the wall had been rebuilt, but the people still avoided Jerusalem as their dwelling.  It would be pointless to spend so much time rebuilding it but have inadequate people to protect it. It would be an open invitation for the enemies to wreak havoc there. Lacking people there would always be a resource problem.  

Like Jerusalem, the church of our Lord must be populated. The church however is not about a building but a people. We are called to go out into the world to make disciples so that the church could be enlarged. We must populate the church with more disciples of Christ.  Let us collaborate and fulfill the Great Commission!