BIAY - Darkness in need of light
Judges 19-21, Proverbs 14:15-29
Welcome to the Bible in a Year for 2025. Intro to this series and resource links available here, plus here’s how I’m approaching this year.
Scriptures for Today:
Reflection:
These last few chapters of Judges come with a content warning for sexual assault, abuse, dismemberment, and callous disregard for other human beings. They relate a story of extraordinary wickedness, immorality, and evil in revolting images and detail.
The theme is the lawlessness of Israel at this time. This morally repugnant and soulless tale is the writer’s proof.
“In those days Israel had no king” (19:1, 21:25) - There would be imperfect kings in Israel’s future, of course, but this section of the book of Judges (beginning in the last chapter), is emphasizing the lack of living by the covenant, the rule of law. The text is thinking of an ideal king with both moral and administrative authority to bring order to the moral chaos and loose tribalism of Israel in this period, and is probably pointing towards David. Yet, for Christians we are able to read this need for an ideal king as pointing to the one true and perfect king, Jesus.
“…everyone did as they saw fit.” (21:25) - That it is difficult to impossible to find anyone who has behaved remotely righteously is the point of this awful story. The people are not living by the covenant and there is no earthly authority that is leading them to do so. They are not behaving like the covenant community of the Lord, but like the surrounding peoples. That’s the point of the outrage that this has happened “in Israel.” This is complete moral degradation, disorder, and chaos.
Finally, a couple of proverbs from today:
Questions:
Where have you seen Christians or Christian ministries make a difference in the world where moral evil and wickedness were present?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, teach me your ways, guide me in your paths, and lead me to be a light in the darkness of the world. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
If you liked this post from Seeds of Faith, why not share it and/or subscribe?
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™