July 21st, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

Yesterday we started to look at the first of two stories which conclude the book of Judges.  This account involves a lot of different people – an Ephraimite man named Micah and his family, a Levite who wandered through and became Micah’s private priest over his shrine of idols, and the tribe of Dan as they traveled by on search of a different land from what God had allotted for them.

We concluded yesterday’s post with the Danites discovering the Levite and Micah’s idol shrine.  We said that according to the law in Leviticus 17, if the Danites were obedient Israelites who were seeking to follow the Lord, we would expect them to confirm the reports of Micah’s idolatry and then stone Micah and the Levite to death. Idolatry was that serious.  Unfortunately, we do not see them agreeing with God’s law about the serious sin of idolatry.

So they turned in there and went to the house of the young Levite at Micah’s place and greeted him. The six hundred Danites, armed for battle, stood at the entrance to the gate. The five men who had spied out the land went inside and took the carved image, the ephod, the other household gods and the cast idol while the priest and the six hundred armed men stood at the entrance to the gate.

When these men went into Micah’s house and took the carved image, the ephod, the other household gods and the cast idol, the priest said to them, “What are you doing?”

They answered him, “Be quiet! Don’t say a word. Come with us, and be our father and priest. Isn’t it better that you serve a tribe and clan in Israel as priest rather than just one man’s household?” Then the priest was glad. He took the ephod, the other household gods and the carved image and went along with the people. Putting their little children, their livestock and their possessions in front of them, they turned away and left. (Judges 18:15-21)

They did the opposite of obedience! Leviticus warned solemnly to purge the evil of idolatry from their midst. Rather than purging, they embraced this idolatry and took it to be their own!

The text says that Micah and other men from his household chase after them, and in their confrontation he says, “You took the gods I made, and my priest, and went away. What else do I have?” What a horribly sad statement! What else do you have?? Try Yahweh, the True God of Israel!!

So, the Danites continue on their way, and the description of their conquest is disturbing.

Then they took what Micah had made, and his priest, and went on to Laish, against a peaceful and unsuspecting people. They attacked them with the sword and burned down their city. There was no one to rescue them because they lived a long way from Sidon and had no relationship with anyone else. (18:27-28)

But it gets worse.

There the Danites set up for themselves the idols, and Jonathan son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests for the tribe of Dan until the time of the captivity of the land. (18:30)

Moses’ own grandson and his family were the priests over this wicked scene. Every man was doing as he saw fit, and they were woefully, horribly wrong. As we saw in the story of Jephthah, their understanding of God was so skewed that they thought he would bless this flagrant rebellion against His nature and His Word.

Hold on, because as we’ll see tomorrow, it just keeps getting worse.

In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.
Judges 17:6

July 20th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

Samson is the last detailed look we have at the specific judges, or deliverers, that rule over Israel during this time period. If you remember back to the first posts on Judges, I said that this book falls into a fairly neat outline:

Ch. 1-3 – Scary preview of this book: they have disobeyed, and it will not go well.
Ch. 3-16 – Downward spiral of spiritual and moral climate during the rule of the judges
Ch. 17-21 – Two frightening stories that illustrate the problem

Today we will begin to look at the first of those last two stories – it involves a man named Micah, a Levite from Bethlehem, and the tribe of Dan. Please read chapters 17-18 on your own, as we will be leaving a lot of details out.

This story begins with Micah, who tells his mother that he is the one who stole her silver. What might you expect a good mother to do? Deal with the issue of stealing, perhaps? Nope.

Then his mother said, “The LORD bless you, my son!”
When he returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, she said, “I solemnly consecrate my silver to the LORD for my son to make a carved image and a cast idol. I will give it back to you.” (17:2b-3)

There are so many things wrong with this story already. She blesses him for stealing. Then she says she will consecrate her silver to the Lord… “to make a carved image and a cast idol.” What!? You’re consecrating this to the Lord to make an IDOL? It’s doesn’t take a PhD in Old Testament theology to know that she’s way off base.

So now Micah has his idols from his mother’s silver. He puts them and an ephod (again, I don’t really know the significance of that and if it ties into Gideon’s ephod…) and some other things in his own personal shrine, and sets his son up as a his own private priest. How nice. Notice that they were from the tribe of Ephraim, not Levi, and his son was an illegal priest over idolatrous images in Micah’s own shrine of idolatrous worship. Now, catch the next verse: In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit. (17:6)

Next, we find that a young Levite leaves to look for another place to stay. (This also is disobedient, as the Lord had prescribed certain cities where the Levites were to live throughout the tribes of Israel.) He comes to Micah’s house, and when Micah finds out that he is a Levite, he asks him to stay on, and he would pay him to be his priest.

Isn’t this better, to have a disobedient Levite as your priest over your shrine of idols, rather than your son who is from the wrong tribe? Apparently, Micah thinks it is, for verse 13 says, And Micah said, “Now I know that the LORD will be good to me, since this Levite has become my priest.”

In 18:1, we see a repetition of 17:6, In those days Israel had no king.

Next, we find the tribe of Dan looking for a place to live.

And in those days the tribe of the Danites was seeking a place of their own where they might settle, because they had not yet come into an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. (18:1)

Now, before you feel badly for the Danites and think that they are just looking for a place to live, remember back to chapter 1 of Judges.

We discussed in Judges: Take me to your Leader that the tribes failed to obey and trust the Lord to claim their land as their own. The Danites were no exception. They, too, had been allotted a specific tract of land from the Lord, and they had failed to take it as their own.

Judges 1:34 says that the Amorites confined the Danites to the hill country, not allowing them to come down into the plain. The tribe of Dan had failed to obey God’s command to posses the land, and now they were wandering around looking for someone else’s land that they could take.

They are passing by and hear the Levite’s voice. They go in and find out that he has been hired as Micah’s priest, and they ask him to inquire of God about whether or not their journey will be successful. Notice that the text never says that he did this! He assures them that their journey “has the Lord’s approval.” (18:6) (The disobedient priest over an idolatrous shrine assures the rebellious tribe looking to steal land that is not theirs that God approves of them? I think not.)

So, the spies from the Danites go check out the land and decide that they want to take it. Six hundred armed men from the tribe join them, and on their way they pass by Micah’s house again.

Then the five men who had spied out the land of Laish said to their brothers, “Do you know that one of these houses has an ephod, other household gods, a carved image and a cast idol? Now you know what to do.” (18:14)

Yes, this house has a whole bunch of idols! What should the obvious answer have been to “you know what to do!”?

Leviticus 17:2-7 makes the answer to that question crystal clear:

If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the LORD gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God in violation of his covenant, and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars of the sky, and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death. On the testimony of two or three witnesses a man shall be put to death, but no one shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you.

So, if the Danites are obedient Israelites who are seeking to follow the Lord, we expect them to find out if this is true, and then stone Micah and the Levite to death. Idolatry was that serious. Tomorrow we’ll see what they decide to do…

*Picture from http://www.biblepicturegallery.com

July 15th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

On Tuesday we started discussing Samson, the “dumb jock” deliverer. ;)  Today we’ll pick up where we left off… Samson had just pulled the huge city gate from Gaza’s walls and had carried it literally uphill for 40 miles… remember that he was in Gaza to visit with his prostitute friend.  I’m sure they were just reading the Pentateuch together.

Samson was unmatched when it came to physical strength, but is sorely lacking in moral and spiritual strength. He’s consumed with and controlled by lust. He disregards the sacredness of his calling and uses his physical strength for his own fleshly desires for sex, control, and revenge.

The next chapter of Samson’s life is infamous and a common element of costume parties – his lovely girl Delilah.  Every single time Delilah asks what would make him able to be overpowered, he tells her something, and the next thing he knows, she’s tried it and has a bunch of Philistines trying to take him down!  Could he possibly be THAT stupid??

My suggestion for consideration is: I don’t think he was stupid.  I don’t think the issue was that he didn’t figure out what Delilah was trying to do. Rather, I think he was so impressed with himself that he thought he could fight his way out. Notice that after she shaves his head, the text says: He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had left him. (16:20) I think Samson so disregarded the supernatural source of his power, felt so sure of his own strength and ability, that he cast aside his call to obedience and thought he could make it on his own.

This story actually has a lot of application for us to consider.

*God still used Samson even in all of his lustful, perverted ways. How do we deal with that? The reality is that God is in control, and He can use anyone He wants to accomplish His plans. Now, ponder this: Hebrews 11 lists Samson among those of great faith! …but that doesn’t make him flawless. God is the real hero of the story. Every time. He doesn’t use us because we have it all together – it’s all about Him.

*That being said, as soon as start thinking of ourselves as the source of our own strength, we’re in deep trouble. We can start living life like Samson with Delilah – “I’ll never fall to temptation,” “that would never happen to me,” “look at those poor people being deceived,” etc. Pretty soon the Philistines are on top of us – we have trusted in ourselves and we will quickly realize that we’re only human after all. Remember Peter walking on the water? He wasn’t able to do it because he had power in and of himself – he walked on the water through the power of relying fully on Jesus Christ.

*Finally, Samson is one more example of how poorly we often teach the Bible to children. Samson is not just a big strong guy who does amazing things. He is a fallen, flawed, messed up man who did some incredibly stupid things. But His God was big enough to use even him and whatever faith he had to help deliver His people. Once again, it’s all about God!

So please, don’t buy the Samson muscle suit for your child this Christmas.  Let’s teach them the whole story – he was a deeply flawed man.  And his God was big enough to use even him… and I am thankful He is big enough to use even me in spite of all my flaws and failures, aren’t you?

July 13th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

Ah, Samson. Just the name conjures up images of Stretch Armstrong toys from my childhood – blond with rippling muscles… and no brain. I like to think of Samson as the “dumb jock” deliverer! However, I don’t think this was the scenario God wanted him to play out – he was born with great potential.

If you read Judges 13, you’ll find that Samson has quite a good start in life – a miraculous birth foretold to a barren woman. Set apart to God from conception. He’s in good company here – Isaac, Jacob and Esau, John the Baptist… God instructs Samson’s mother and father that he is to be brought up as a Nazirite (another parallel with John the Baptist).

So, what’s a Nazirite? Numbers 6 contains the regulations for a person who wants to take a special vow of separation to the Lord by becoming a Nazirite. The instructions given to Samson’s parents parallel these stipulations in Numbers:

1. No grapes, wine, or other fermented drink. Why? The Nazarite was to be in control at all times.

2. No haircuts. Why? The Nazirite was to be unashamed of his open dedication to the Lord.

3. No close association with death. Why? Death has no place in God’s presence. [In my opinion, a strong argument against Halloween. But, that's another topic entirely.]

Wow, things are looking up! God has set a man apart from conception to be the leader and deliverer of Israel. He is going to be a man wholly and unashamedly devoted to the Lord! Add super-human strength, and bingo – he’s the whole package!

Sadly, this is not how we see the story playing out. Please read chapters 13-16 on your own, as we won’t go through all of the events together – there are just a couple of things I’d like to highlight.

First of all, how does he do on sticking to his lifelong dedication as a Nazarite? He obviously doesn’t cut his hair (well, until Delilah gives him a makeover), and we don’t see him drinking wine… however, was he in control at all times, focused in his service of the Lord? Yeah, not so much – hold on to that thought and we’ll come back to it.  How about that death thing? That weird part of the story with him scooping honey out of the lion carcass… not on the “Nazarite diet.” One more obvious account where he flagrantly violates this: slaying 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey.

This man also has a shockingly small amount of self-control, if any – he is completely ruled by his appetites. Chapter 14:2-7 pictures this well. The way he talks about the woman he wants to marry (who, by the way, is a Philistine) is really odd:

“I saw a woman in Timnah… get her for me…” (14:2)
“Get her for me, for she looks good to me” (14:3)
“So he went down and talked to the woman; and she looked good to Samson.” (14:7)

This gets even more interesting in chapter 16. Samson goes to Gaza and spends the night with a prostitute. (Enough said, right?) The people hear that he’s there and are lying in wait for him. Samson, however, gets up in the middle of the night and tears out the city gate and carries it on his shoulders to the mountain opposite Hebron. This might not strike you from reading the text, so let’s talk about that a bit.

First of all, the city gate. 16:3 says he “took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all.” If you have never seen pictures of what the city gates at this time period looked like, this might not seem impressive. Get that image of a little garden gate out of your head.

Remember, the walls around a city were your primary mode of defense in these days. The weakest point of the wall was obviously the gate. So they made these gates HUGE, and I’m sure they were reinforced in any possible way they knew how! So, he rips this ginormous gate out, puts it on his shoulders, and takes it… to the mountain opposite Hebron. Hebron was 40 miles east, and 3,300 feet up from Gaza!

This post is “to be continued” tomorrow!!  :)  In the meantime… what always comes to mind when you think of Samson?  Do you think it is in line with what we see in this text?