Judges 20: Hanging by a Thread

In those days, Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.

A times comes when you can no longer blame your problems on other people. So it is at the end of Judges. Foreign enemies are no longer in view: The enemy is Israel itself.

Pointless and violent, these last five chapters begin with a son stealing from his mother and end with parents agreeing to let their daughters be kidnapped. In between are homosexual and heterosexual gang rapes, murder, idolatry, armed robbery, and mass slaughter. No enemy does all this: Israelites do it to each other. Clearly the exalted nation of Israel, God's chosen people, has lost all sense of direction.

Everyone did as he saw fit may not sound very negative in our era, which places high value on individualism and personal freedom. But God prizes something more: unity. He wants his people united in love for him and each other. God's law had bound his people to a common worship in the tabernacle and to a common standard of caring for each other. For this the Israelites adopted a do-as-you-please religion and a fractured society, where each family or group fought for its own rights alone.

By the end of Judges, Israelites are reduced to fighting themselves. They have adopted their enemies' customs. They worship idols. The are sexually immoral. They lack respect for parents. They cannot remember the pattern of life God had set out. It is hard to say, by the end of Judges, why God should save Israel from its enemies. It is hard to say whether Israelites are the least bit different from their enemies. Israel has become, in fact, its own worst enemy.

Only one glimmer of hope appears: the Israelites' shock at the Benjamites' gang rape. They can still get together to punish such outrages, and they still consult the Lord about them. But they are a far cry from the hopeful people Joshua had led into the promised land.

Life Question: Can you think of an example where we- as God's people-are still fighting/ bickering amongst ourselves, instead of placing God's desires first?

.

Well, a recent statement by Pope Benedict in a document called Dominus Iesus was released last week contending that "all religions (except Roman Catholic) are either defective or not true churches, and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation." I'm still shaking my head on this one. It would seem to me that THE Christian Church should band together to preach the gospel and emulate Christ instead of getting so enthralled with the different buildings and denominations.