Thoughts on Judges 17

Today's reading: Judges 17; Acts 28

Judges 17 is a great presentation of something I think a lot of people forget when reading the Old Testament; that the people in the Old Testament were often very ignorant about what God wanted from Israel.

It is easy to filter what we are reading through our own experiences. While not everyone had experiences like this, many of us grew up going to church, getting sent to Sunday School, having the bible available to read, being taught about God by our parents, etc. Aside from that, there is also just generally a lot of cultural knowledge, at least in the United States, around Christianity. So when we read about Jephthah sacrificing his daughter a few days ago, or when see Micah's mother making an idol to the Lord, or when Micah finds a random non-Aaronic Levite to ordain as a priest, all of this just screams anti-God to us, and we wonder how they could possibly be so far off the mark.

But let's remember a few important things about Israel at this point:

• If they had any written Scriptures at all, it was minimal, and it was definitely not widely distributed.
• There was a central place of worship at the Tabernacle (set up at Shiloh at this point), but that was only for significant sacrifices and offerings, so the average Israelite did not go often.
• There were no local "churches" or anything similar where people were going weekly to regularly be exposed to teaching about Yahweh.
• There was no centralized authority in Israel to help guide spiritual practices.

So in this state, what happened was exactly what God warned would happen is they left the Canaanites in the land; the Israelites learned from them how they worshiped their gods and started appropriating their practices. The further they drifted from being grounded in Mosaic teaching, the more susceptible they were to wrong theology, assuming Yahweh was like the Canaanite gods and wanted similar worship. And this is exactly what we see in Judges 17. It's telling that Micah's mother wanted to make a carved image in dedication to Yahweh, and then, after ordaining the Levite as priest, Micah's assumption is that Yahweh will bless him as a result. They explicitly think they are following Yahweh, but they are doing it in a way directly contrary to how He previously said He wanted them to worship Him.

Honestly, if you were to reconstruct Christianity today from cultural understanding/perception of Christianity, I bet you would see a lot of the same kinds of things. A lot of the cultural perception of Christianity is that it is all about following rules, going to church regularly, probably giving money to a church, and maybe that's it? So it shouldn't surprise us when people go to church, give that church some money, and try to be a relatively decent person, and think then that God is probably happy with them and they'll probably go to heaven when they die. This is not an exaggeration when I say that I legitimately could not count the number of people who have given me answers very much like this when I've asked if they will go to heaven when the die. I have heard this from probably over a hundred people over the years. But if you know the Bible, you know that none of these things have anything to do with whether you will go to heaven when you die or not! Our eternity is entirely determined on the question of wether or not we have placed our faith in Jesus. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one can get to the Father except through Him, and yet, so so many people think they will get to the Father on their own power and their own merit.

I'm betting that Micah and his mother thought they were doing great things for Yahweh and that he would be well pleased with their efforts, when the reality is exactly the opposite.

So on the one hand, it's important to remember, as we are reading through, that this is the state of Israel at this point in time, and much of what people were doing opposed to Yahweh was not done in malice, but in ignorance, however, that does not excuse ignorance.

On the other hand, this is important for us to realize for ourselves as well. There is a lot of thought, understanding, and teaching about God or Christianity that isn't actually grounded in the Scriptures and can very easily lead us astray in our faith if we are not grounded in the truth. Too many well-meaning Christians today aren't all that unlike Micah, excitedly dedicating their idols to Yahweh, completely ignorant that what they are offering to God is so far from what He actually desires. We have so much more opportunity today than anyone in Old Testament times ever had to learn the Word and understand God's intentions and desires for us. Let's not let laziness carry us into the ignorance that leads us astray from proper faithfulness to the Lord!