True brothers never take advantage of you. They grieve your difficulties and celebrate your success.
Unusual times demand unusual sacrifice. As Paul would say during the “killing times” in the first century, “Because of the present crisis, I think it is good for a man to remain as he is” (1 Cor 7:26, BSB). He didn’t consider abstention from marriage the norm, but knew that the life he was experiencing—robbed, beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, fleeing in the middle of the night—did not exactly make for a stable home life. The people working with Nehemiah faced such times. He wrote: “So we labored in the work, and half of the men held the spears from daybreak until the stars appeared. At the same time I also said to the people, ‘Let each man and his servant stay at night in Jerusalem, that they may be our guard by night and a working party by day.’ So neither I, my brethren, my servants, nor the men of the guard who followed me took off our clothes, except that everyone took them off for washing” (Neh 4:21-23). But not everyone was committed to this group dynamic. Others, following the adage, “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” saw this as an opportunity to grow their bank accounts. Their brethren were over the barrel. Working nonstop, they couldn’t attend to their farms and gardens. Unknown to Nehemiah, his fellow-workers had their backs against the wall. Literally! They said, “We have mortgaged our lands and vineyards and houses, that we might buy grain because of the famine” (5:3). Others informed him, “We have borrowed money for the king’s tax on our lands and vineyards” (v 4). Now their own children were being taken as indentured servants to work for these greedy “Jewish brethren” (v 1). Appalling! “And,” said Nehemiah, “I became very angry when I heard their outcry and these words” (v 6). But what could be done about it?