12:1-26 Listed are the priests and Levites who returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel.
12:27-42 Nehemiah arranged for spiritual celebration throughout the city of Jerusalem on the day he dedicated the wall. He also appointed thanksgiving choirs; through song and instrument the people rejoiced at both the restoration of the wall and their renewed covenant with God.
12:43 The celebration was kingdom-wide and was heard beyond the borders. In Revelation 19, we learn of the great, kingdom-wide celebration that the righteous will take part in at the fall of Babylon, the destruction of evil.
12:44-47 People were appointed to fill certain responsibilities within the temple.
So much like our actual life responsibilities: God plants willing souls in places where they can serve in a way specific to their personality, skills and purpose. Jerusalem had teachers, singers, gatekeepers, soldiers and so much more. Like them, we have varying skills and responsibilities but all of them are important within the kingdom:
1 Corinthians 12:12-27
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Steadily, Jerusalem became a city of organization and dedication (to faith in God). Appreciate the process of spiritual restoration and all the work it requires, it is the most constructive work you will ever do.
