The Final Descent
For Meditation (Corey Widmer)
This Sunday we come to the end of Judges and the conclusion of our study of this remarkable book. From the beginning of this series, we've been asking the question, "Who are we becoming?" And in these final chapters, we get a devastating answer: God's people have become virtually indistinguishable from the Canaanites. The very people who were called to embody God's reign in the land have instead brought destruction, violence, and abuse.
As you prepare for worship this week, I invite you to read the full account of chapters 17–21. Be warned: this is not easy reading. In fact, I cannot remember ever hearing a sermon on any of these chapters in my entire life as a Christian! And for good reason- they are extraordinarily dark and disturbing chapters. But these shocking stories serve an important purpose. They hold up a mirror to God's people, exposing what happens when we turn away from God's ways and allow ourselves to be shaped instead by our own idolatrous desires.
"In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit." This is the final verse of Judges, and a refrain repeated throughout these concluding chapters. We'll explore what happens when people become their own ultimate authority, losing the ability to distinguish between what is right in their own eyes and what is right in God's eyes. And we'll consider the warning this offers us today, not simply about the culture around us, but about the ways we ourselves can become distorted by the things we worship. Yet even in the darkness, we'll look for a glimmer of hope in the God whose covenant faithfulness endures despite our persistent unfaithfulness.
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
As you reflect on the entire book of Judges, what has most challenged, surprised, or stayed with you? How has this series shaped your understanding of what it means to be God's people?
In Judges 17, Micah creates his own place of worship, complete with idols and a priest, while assuming that God will bless him. What are some ways we might similarly reshape God according to our own preferences, rather than allowing God to reshape us?
The final chapters of Judges portray a society marked by the abuse of power, exploitation of the vulnerable, and escalating violence. What connections do you see between the people's false worship and the way they treat one another? What might this teach us about the relationship between worship and justice?
The book ends with the words, "Everyone did as they saw fit." How do we discern the difference between following God's will and simply doing what seems right to us? What practices or relationships help us recognize our own blind spots?
Throughout Judges, Israel repeatedly fails to live out its calling to be a holy people who reflect God's character to the world. What would it look like for our church to embody a genuinely different way of life under the gracious reign of Jesus? Where do you see signs of that life already taking shape among us?
Judges 17:1-6, 21:15-25
Now a man named Micah from the hill country of Ephraim said to his mother, “The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from you and about which I heard you utter a curse—I have that silver with me; I took it.”
Then his mother said, “The Lord bless you, my son!”
When he returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, she said, “I solemnly consecrate my silver to the Lord for my son to make an image overlaid with silver. I will give it back to you.”
So after he returned the silver to his mother, she took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to a silversmith, who used them to make the idol. And it was put in Micah’s house.
Now this man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and some household gods and installed one of his sons as his priest. In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.
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The people grieved for Benjamin, because the Lord had made a gap in the tribes of Israel. And the elders of the assembly said, “With the women of Benjamin destroyed, how shall we provide wives for the men who are left? The Benjamite survivors must have heirs,” they said, “so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out. We can’t give them our daughters as wives, since we Israelites have taken this oath: ‘Cursed be anyone who gives a wife to a Benjamite.’ But look, there is the annual festival of the Lord in Shiloh, which lies north of Bethel, east of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah.”
So they instructed the Benjamites, saying, “Go and hide in the vineyards and watch. When the young women of Shiloh come out to join in the dancing, rush from the vineyards and each of you seize one of them to be your wife. Then return to the land of Benjamin. When their fathers or brothers complain to us, we will say to them, ‘Do us the favor of helping them, because we did not get wives for them during the war. You will not be guilty of breaking your oath because you did not give your daughters to them.’”
So that is what the Benjamites did. While the young women were dancing, each man caught one and carried her off to be his wife. Then they returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the towns and settled in them.
At that time the Israelites left that place and went home to their tribes and clans, each to his own inheritance.
In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.