In this week’s readings, we began the book of Judges. A few things stood out to me about this book so far, so here they are, in no particular order:
- The Israelite’s actually continued doing well without Joshua for a while. In the first few chapters, there is no single functional human leader, yet Israel continues to have some huge successes. They’re conquering land, winning battles, and generally continuing to kick butt. Eventually, though, they begin to fail. This seems to speak to being vigilant, carefully watching for roots of apathy to grow in my life. Which brings me to…
- Israel did not always completely drive out the enemy. I’ve mentioned this before, but it seems to bear repeating. They came so close. They only seem to leave a few here and there. Yet when Israel strays, it’s the Gods of those few people that they get distracted by. It’s easy for me to “cut corners” in my walk, to rationalize, and say “oh, that’s not so bad, I don’t absolutely have to change that area”. Which can lead to the next point…
- Eventually, God gets sick of Israel not destroying the enemy, and the text actually says that He begins to allow those people to stay there, to test Israel. This is a frightening idea, reminding me of Romans 1, where we are told that God turns (unbelieving) people over to their sin. May my life never come to this!
- At a high level, the cycle for Israel is: get lazy, begin to sin, get judged by God, cry out for forgiveness, get rescued by God, and repeat. I don’t know about anybody else, but I don’t feel like I see a clear cycle like this in my life. I certainly see all those elements, but the picture seems murkier to me. I don’t know, maybe some day I’ll be able to look back and see it more clearly. It doesn’t really matter, it’s just interesting.
- On a smaller scale, we get a “zoomed-in” view of Gideon as he begins to be called by God to judge the nation of Israel. What stands out to me is the dialog between him and God. This is not a one-time appearance from God which changes Gideon and makes him a leader. Rather, it’s an honest back-and-forth as God proves Himself to Gideon, and Gideon proves himself to himself. Very interesting stuff.
Advertisement
