Theological Commentary: Click Here
Judges 20 is
essentially an extension of the story we read yesterday. When God’s people hear about the sin of
Gibeah, they gather for battle. They
desire to do something about this evil growing and living in Gibeah.
Note,
however, that we can learn about the perspectives of human beings. While most of God’s people gather to oppose
Gibeah, the tribe of Benjamin stands with Gibeah. The Benjaminites choose to stand with their
brothers instead of choosing to stand with God’s ways. If we are not careful, we can easily slip
into the perspective of choosing family over God. If we are not careful, family can become like
an idol to us. If we are not careful, we
learn to justify the sins of our family because they are family. If we are not careful, we gain a blind spot
towards our family and become of little help to them when they are tempted by
sinfulness.
Another
thing that we can learn from this story is that God will always be the ultimate
victor. At first, it seems like the
people of Gibeah will get away with their crime. At the end of the last chapter, their crime
had gone unpunished. As the troop gather
for battle we see the not once but twice the Benjaminites rout the people of
God. However, what is really going on
here is that the people of Gibeah are being set up for utter destruction. God doesn’t want to just teach them a lesson
and put them in their place. God wants
to judge their whole city for their crimes and livelihood. God is the ultimate victor in this story.
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment