Week 6 (The Judges) – Day 1: Isreal’s Disobedience

Day 26 – Israel’s Disobedience - Judges 2:6-3:6

First, I recommend that everyone take a look at the previous post which describes the background for the Books of Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 &2 Kings. 

One theme of these books regards the possession of the Promised Land.  If the Israelites are obedient and worship God alone, they will possess the land.  If they worship other gods, God will take away the land from them.  We see this play out between the Books of Joshua and Judges.  Joshua is very obedient to God, so the Israelites are successful during his leadership.  After him, the Israelites go through approximately 200 years of disobedience.  We see the decline of the Israelites over this time to the point that the final words of Judges are:   “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.”  (Judges 21:15)  This is a reference to not only a human king, but that God was not king.  Sound familiar to our own society?   

Here is some background about the judges.  In general they are military leaders who are chosen by God to deal with particular crisis. Once these crises pass they disappear back into obscurity, often falling through sin.  In addition we should recognize that the Israelites were not unified during this time.  Loyalty to a united Israel was not high on the priority list.  Family, clan and tribal ties were more important.  So the judges often did not rule over the entire people, but only a portion of the tribes.  We see hints of this in Deborah’s victory song (Judges 5:15-17).

In this introduction to this book we see several important issues for us as well.  There is a reference to the rise of a new generation who did not know the Lord (v. 2:10).  How well do we do in our role of nurturing disciples?  Each of us pledges to support those who are baptized.  How well do we do with these vows as parents and as members of a congregation? 

While we don’t usually have an idol of another god in front of us, we are often guilty of idolatry.  What pressures, values, and enticements of our own culture may demand our time, energy, resources, and loyalty to the point that God is pushed to the background?  This is also idolatry.  What may be an idol in your own life?

In Christ,

Randy

 

BTW - Congrats we are 1/4 of the way through!