The Cost of False Worship
For Meditation (Corey Widmer)
Jephthah’s story is one of the most disturbing in the Bible. He calls upon the name of the Lord, makes a terrible vow, and ultimately sacrifices his own daughter. What are we to do with a story like this, and what could it possibly reveal about God?
Throughout Judges, we have watched Israel slowly absorb the beliefs and practices of the nations around them. By the time we reach Jephthah, something even more disturbing has happened: Israel has not simply worshiped other gods; they have begun to imagine the Lord as though he were one of those gods. Jephthah invokes the name of God while acting in ways utterly contrary to God's character and commands.
This Sunday we'll consider the danger of false worship: not simply worshiping the wrong god, but worshiping the true God according to false ideas about who God is. And we'll pay particular attention to the person who bears the terrible cost of Jephthah's distorted faith: his unnamed daughter.
As you prepare for worship, consider not only whether you worship God, but what kind of God you imagine yourself to be worshiping. How might the world around us , or even the false ideas in in our hearts and minds, shape our assumptions about God's character? And where do we look to discover what God is truly like?
Questions for Reflection & Discussion
What strikes or troubles you most about Judges 11:29–40? Rather than trying to resolve those feelings quickly, what might they help you notice about the story? Try to be curious more than rushing to conclusions.
Jephthah calls upon the Lord but seems to relate to God according to the assumptions of the religions surrounding Israel. What beliefs about God have you absorbed from your family, culture, politics, or religious background that may not reflect God's revealed character?
Jephthah tries to bargain for something God has already begun to give him (11:29–30). Where are you tempted to relate to God transactional— to earn, control, or secure what can only be received as grace?
Jephthah's daughter bears the terrible cost of her father's distorted worship. Who tends to bear the cost when religious conviction becomes disconnected from God's justice, mercy, and love? Where have you seen this happen?
One of the central questions of this story is simply: What is God actually like? How does the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus help us distinguish the character of God from distorted pictures of God, even pictures offered in God's name?
Judges 11:29-40
Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.
When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break.”
“My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me just as you promised, now that the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request,” she said. “Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.”
“You may go,” he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.
From this comes the Israelite tradition that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.