“I know the LORD will bless me now,” Micah said, “because I have a Levite serving as my priest.”
Judges 17:13 NLT
It is hard to keep your jaw from dropping as you read Judges 17. The behavior of the people in the chapter is simply stunning. They live as though they have never heard of the Sinai covenant, and then expect Yahweh, the covenant God, to bless them.
A man steals his mother’s money, but when he hears her curse the thief (probably using God’s name), he decides to give it back. She is so overjoyed to get her money back that she dedicates some of it to Yahweh and uses it to make an idol! The man makes a shrine for the idol, makes some other gods to go with it, and to top it all off, appoints his son as priest. But evidently he feels a little uncomfortable having an “amateur” as a priest, so when a professional comes along, he persuades him to move in with them and serve the idol professionally. His concluding words are those printed above, which are simply stunning for blindness. He has broken Yahweh’s commands and violated his ordinances, yet he expects Yahweh to bless him!
What had happened?! I think it is very clear. The word of God had ceased to be taught. Some two hundred years had passed since Sinai, and folk religion had come to replace the religion of the Word. Even the “professionals,” one of whose main duties was to teach the Torah, have obviously lost their way. They retained some of the language and a smattering of the ideas, but the heart of Yahwistic faith, which emphasized his absolute otherness from this world, his holiness, was clearly not for them.
And are we different? Not unless we are devoted to the study of the Word. We see it in the so-called “mainline denominations”: every person constructs the religion that suits them best and then expects the God of the covenant, a covenant they have utterly forsaken, to bless them. But it is not limited to those folks. Those of us who call ourselves “evangelical” are just as likely to fall into the pit of our own making unless we too adhere to the only measuring rod God has given us: his inspired, inerrant Word. Are you submitting your life to that measuring rod?
Called To Be Transformed 