“… for they were considered reliable.”
Nehemiah 13:13
As governor, Nehemiah appointed four men to handle the tithe money and distribute it out as needed. He chose those four men because they were “considered reliable”. What does that even mean?
To be reliable is to be consistently good and trustworthy. It is not enough to do good things from time to time or to be trusted in some circumstances – the consistency part is what makes reliability. A broken tooth may not hurt with every bite, but it is no longer reliable and must be dealt with. None of us would trust a dog that didn’t bite “most of the time”, nor would we accept a spouse’s excuse that they didn’t cheat “hardly ever”.
It is only when something is predictable to the point of ignoring it that we begin to think of it as reliable. The sun is so reliable that we never wring our hands over its rising. We never worry or concern ourselves with the percentage of oxygen in the air – we simply breath and ignore how splendid it is that we may do so. Reliability is blessedly boring and predictable.
Is your church attendance reliable? How about your honesty? Is your commitment to your spouse reliable? Is your word reliable enough that people forget what they asked you to do, or do they expect they will need to follow-up to remind you of your obligations? Are you reliable with money or are you prone to fits of covetousness or greed?
May we become so boringly predictable in our Christianity that even our enemies will be able to predict what moral path we will take.
Matthew 4:4 #Biblebites