Nehemiah the Israelite leader displays numerous traits of a Servant Leader in the biblical book, Nehemiah. Nehemiah sets out on a quest to rebuild the city of Jerusalem and the wall that surrounds his beloved home. During this time, he encounters many obstacles and will overcome all roadblocks put in front of him. This paper will provide an analysis of two significant events, building the wall around Jerusalem and organizing Jerusalem’s people to rebuild the city.
The analysis will define two leadership models and provide specific examples for each model that will be presented; Servant Leadership and Transformational Leadership and the behaviors to model, if one intends to be a Servant Leader.
Nehemiah the Organizational Genius
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The second event, concurrent actions on all fronts Nehemiah speaks of a new vision for the city of Jerusalem, where the people could create the foundation for change if they commit to achieving the results. Nehemiah organizes work crews, sustains opposition from those who oppose the rebuilding, and reforms the court system. Furthermore, Nehemiah purifies the religious practices and aligns the religious teachings with God’s scriptures. Using concurrent actions as Nehemiah demonstrates, builds momentum, and shows the commitment of the people participating in the rebuilding process.
Nehemiah’s Servant Leadership Behavior
Analyzing Nehemiah’s Servant Leadership behavior, Nehemiah will raise other people’s needs as a higher priority over his own; this is evident by the dedication of Nehemiah’s work to rebuilding Jerusalem. Nehemiah demonstrates how to serve first, instead of caring for his own wellbeing, an example of this is; Nehemiah hears of the troubles the people of Jerusalem are having and is willing to take action to help.
The second event, Transformational Leadership, Nehemiah shows great charisma in elevating the people of Jerusalem to work together for the good of the city and their neighbors. Nehemiah is able to provide the vision of a new Jerusalem so others can look beyond their own self-interest,
Select three leadership theories and explain how you will implement those theories in your leadership style. Be sure to include specific examples and articulate how the theory influences the outcome. Respond substantively to two other learners.
Explain why it is important for servant leadership to improve communities and society. Why is leadership courage important to realize these changes?
captivity. They were rebuilding Jerusalem. But Nehemiah was burdened by the fact that the city
Religious spaces, characterized by Thomas Tweed, are “differentiated,” “interrelated,” and “kinetic.” As a sacred city with spiritual significance in three major religions, Jerusalem is depicted thoroughly in the Hebrew Bible and illustrated as one of the spaces Tweed defines. The Bible emphasizes that Jerusalem was chosen by God and honored by Israelites, which differentiates it as a special, singular space; the description of Solomon’s Temple shows that the Holy City was interrelated to economic power and involved in the judgment of civil cases. Moreover, the conquest, development and destruction of Jerusalem illustrate the city as a kinetic space, reflecting the unsettled history of the Iron Age. These characteristics all make Jerusalem a religious and political center from the ancient Near East time to present day, guiding the footsteps of believers around the world.
In this book in the bible the restoration of people from ruins to walk with God is what the story tells. Nehemiah made plans for the people to shield while the wall was being built. The people of the land knew they could go to work and also would be protected. Many of Nehemiah’s servants worked on building the wall while a lot of them provided protection by arming themselves for a potential battle. We can all prepare ourselves and work defensively if needed as this will not allow the work to not continue. The work would not prevent the defensiveness either as both are acceptable and
Nehemiah and Ezra were instrumental in trying to persuade the people back to the teachings of God. “God’s work demands all that we have, and sometimes challenges us to go beyond what we think we are capable of doing” (Arnold & Beyer, 2008, p. 266).They uplifted their spirits by providing them the covenant laws of Moses and helping them rebuild the temple. “Now the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants and all those who had separated themselves from the peoples of the
Chapter 58 of Isaiah marks an important change in cultural values due to the humiliation brought about by the Babylonian invasion around the 6th century B.C.E. Gone are the days of good and evil being simply defined as that which coincides with Yahweh’s will, and that which doesn’t. Now, Isaiah tells the people that simply following the current ways of sacrifice aren’t enough, and instead calls for social justice (Chilton, 200), and, in a sense, attempts to invite a return to pre-monarchical social structuring. This new morality value system aims to upset the existing post-monarchical Israelite social structure, whilst also invigorate a new, post-exilic, collective Israelite national identity. Thus, let us begin by examining the political, social, and literary motivations behind this Book.
Every December in households all over the world, people of the Jewish faith gather around to celebrate the joyous holiday of Hanukkah. Yet few realize that the foundations of this celebration maybe traced on a series of bloody and violent events, which occur more than two thousand years ago. At that time, Judea was a minor providence under the iron fist of a despotic emperor. His relentless obsession to diminish and humiliate the Jewish religion would ignite a holy war. Antiochus’ persecution would have being resisted by faithful Jews, the once who keep up their traditions. Besides the religious motives, this opposition was also based on other social reasons: supporters of Hellenism were mostly members of the wealthy classes: priests and nobles of Jerusalem, therefore, when Jerusalem became a polis, in other words, a Hellenistic city or a city-state in ancient Greece, citizens no longer depended on being part of the same people through circumcision practices, or observed the Sabbath and other laws of the Torah, but a criterion of income and social position was introduced instead. This created a discontent in the middle and lower class of the people. In these times of religious decay, a great military leader arose to
Using a comparative analysis of biblical texts and scholarly articles, this paper will discuss how a sacred space, specifically Jerusalem, manifests itself through God’s choosing. Therefore Jerusalem is the holy dwelling place of the divine, because God chose it through his application of multiple hierophanies and his establishment of axes mundi within the city’s walls.
In his vision, the temple takes a preeminent role, and everything else is the city is secondary to it. The temple, with its well-guarded purity, would bring God back to Israel and keep the people in his pleasure by closely following priestly rituals and rebuilding a covenant(Ezekiel,
One lesson I learned from the fall of Jerusalem is that poor leadership plays a major role in the destruction of a nation. As witnessed in the actions of king Jehoiakim, instead of taking head to the word of the Lord when it was sent to him, the king ripped the messenger's scroll and set fire to it. Because of his disregard for God’s word, he lacked the information he needed concerning Jerusalem. In addition to this, just as the king dishonored the Lord’s word, he died a dishonorable death.
After the temple was completed, Zechariah gave several prophecies about Israel’s future. It vividly describes the first and second coming of our lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This book contains more about the person, work, and glory of Christ than any other minor prophets combined. Israel’s king would come, but his people would reject him. They would later repent and be restored to God. The king is going to come again for the Judgment, we pray that when he comes again that we have been faithful and he will find us pure in his sight. The building of the temple is important here. Our bodies are our temple and we must continue to work on them until Christ comes again to claim us, the Church the people of
In the approach on general leadership characteristics, the fundamental difference is authentic leaderships strive to be “real”, whereas servant leaders strive to be “right.” Servant leadership is a style that lays down a set of characteristics that all leaders are supposed to emulate to attain success, and tries to shape the character and personality of the leader. On the other hand, authentic leaders tend to rely on their own unique set of experiences and style that has been learned and developed throughout their career. The main difference between servant and authentic styles, when applying into practice, is the serving of others. One of the primary applications is to give priority to the interest of others. Servant leaders exercise their duty
The book of Nehemiah is about the physical and spiritual restoration in Jerusalem. Nehemiah is viewed as one of the great leaders in the Old Testament. He led a group of Jews to rebuild the walls in Jerusalem. He shows his leadership through his prayers, sensitivity, boldness, and many other characteristics.