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Join with young adults from NAPARC churches for a great day of outdoor fellowship. This event is sponsored by ABIDE. Click here for details. (Note: Abide is the fellowship group for NAPARC young adults, defined as late teens to mid-thirties, single or married.)
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The pattern is set in the first chapters of Judges: people sin, and God sends judgment. People repent, and God delivers them from judgment. The figure of the deliverer is a vague pencil outline in the first chapters; but it becomes very clear in Samson. Samson is as frustratingly filled out with real human details as we are. His birth was announced by an angel: he was the one who would deliver Israel. But Samson became cocky about the source of his strength, and negligent about his set-apartness, until he was enslaved by his own lusts. He saved more people by his death than in his life; but he died blind and chained, and that was the end of his deliverances (2:19). Samson is the greatest judge. But when I finished telling his story to a children’s class earlier this year, I was looking into very sad, very serious, crestfallen faces. I had to remind them of another birth announcement by an angel.
The final two stories in Judges come right after Samson’s death, and seem like an abrupt change of theme. Neither of the stories highlights a judge: instead there is a priestly figure. Samson’s death shows us the moderate success and huge failure of the judges. Will the Levites do any better?
The story that takes up chapters 17 and 18 opens with a significant sum of silver: 1100 pieces. It was the same price paid for Samson’s betrayal (16:5). A man named Micah has stolen the 1100 pieces from his mother. She curses the money. Micah, overhearing the curse, is troubled and restores it.
Micah’s mother promptly issues a blessing on him; and what follows reads like a game of hot potato, with each party trying politely to get the other to take the cursed money. At last, it is fashioned into an idol and Micah sets it up in a house of worship.1 Now all he needs is a priest. Where can he get a priest in the hill country of Ephraim? Only Levites could be Yahweh’s priests. But Micah has his own tabernacle, and he ordains his own son. Enter a young Levite, traveling through Ephraim’s hill country.
He has been sojourning in Bethlehem of Judah. Here, it seems, is a genuine emblem of the presence of God: his approach to the false image and the false priest creates a kind of suspense.
But the Levite is seeking a place for himself. Micah offers the Levite less than a tithe of the original stolen sum and a priestly garment, and the Levite is content.
Soon after, five spies from Dan come wandering through. They are seeking a favorable place for themselves, too, because they have not yet conquered their allotted territory. The Danites recognise either the particular voice, or the odd accent of the Levite, and demand an account: “… the Levite, like the tribe of Dan itself, is recognizably out of place.”2 They accept his situation as not only quite natural but advantageous: the priest can get a favorable divine answer for them.
The spies then continue their mission and report back to the tribe; the city of Laish is perfect for them. A contingent of six hundred Danite soldiers set out to conquer the city. On their way they come to the house of Micah, and the spies remember what they have seen. The six hundred stand at the gate, while the spies, familiar with the layout of the house, go in to steal Micah’s gods. Micah’s house is under threat by a military force: the figure who comes to meet the threat is the Levite.
It is another suspenseful moment, but the Levite brings nothing upstanding to it. The Danites merely appeal to his self interest. And he is pleasantly moved by a vision of the entire armed body as a multitude of sons. He had been content to stay with Micah. Now his heart is really glad. He carries off the fake ephod, the silver image, and the other household gods.
So Micah, who started off as a thief himself, has become the victim of theft. The very same silver has been stolen. He musters his neighbors and starts after the Danite warriors. When he catches up with them, the Danites shout, “What is the matter
with you?” And he sputters back in helpless rage,“How can you ask me, what is the matter!”
As a child I loved Hank the Cowdog and the Curse of the Incredible Priceless Corncob.3 In an attempt to cheat Pete the cat out of the best dinner scraps, Hank (a cowdog) tries to convince Pete that a corncob is more valuable than a steak. He winds up convincing himself, and carries off the incredible priceless corncob, shirking his duties and fighting over the corncob with other animals. One of the funniest aspects of this story in Judges is the value all the characters are placing on the religious contraband. Why does Micah want a god he has to pursue, as it is helplessly carried off? Why do the Danites want a deity so unable to keep faith with its devotees? Or a Levite so indisposed to do so? How is it that two bands of men come to arguing over these emptinesses? How is it that Micah considers his life empty without them (18:24)?
But Micah howling after the “gods he made” is iconic.“Do not think the idolater too foolish to know that his god is man-made and breakable. He does know it; that is precisely the sort of god he wants … The essence of idolatry is its attempt to control and enslave the deity.”4
I sometimes do that in my approach to obedience, and prayer. Thucydides said that “The powerful exact what they can: the weak grant what they must.”5 – that is history without Yahweh. Micah goes home, priest-less and god-less. The Danites capture and burn Laish. The city is rebuilt and renamed,“however, the name of the city formerly was Laish” (v.29). Laish, a city that had “no deliverer” (v.28). Dan/Laish becomes a rival center of worship
to the tabernacle at Shiloh.
The story that follows in Judges 19 is not a comedy. It is one of the most harrowing stories in the Bible: it is difficult to write much about. There is also a Levite, taking a journey from Bethlehem of Judah. This Levite had first gone to Bethlehem seeking a wayward concubine, but we catch the echo; and other similarities between these last accounts in Judges are so many as to be complex.6 Both Levites traveling from Bethlehem find hospitality with men from the hill country of Ephraim. Both are beset by a ruthless mob. Both stories have closing references to Shiloh.
When a story arc is told twice with variation in details, we tend to hear the second telling as a sort of echo. God is a master storyteller. When Nathan went to David, he told a story about a stolen lamb that moved David to anger (2 Samuel 12:1–15). When Jesus came, he told a story of a vineyard owner whose son was killed by the keepers. As the hearers mounted in outrage they also came to recognition. They perceived that he spoke about them (Matthew 21:33–46). These stories – the one that makes me laugh and the one that makes me cry, back to back – may be intended to produce similar outrage and recognition.
If the sum of silver at the beginning of Judges 17 is echoed from the story of Samson, we are supposed to recognise that someone has been sold into captivity.7 And Someone is clearly missing from Micah’s retinue, despite the religious emblems, vestments, rites, blessings. Religion without God is a farce: here, he always seems to be lurking behind the next plot twist, but as each scene unfolds, he is not there. The dummies of his presence get dragged along until they are erected as rivals to him.
Jesus is betrayed in type in the story of Samson; but Micah’s Levite betrayed God directly. And then his heart was glad to find an even bigger, more affluent family. The Levite in the second story thrust a woman he was supposed to reclaim out to a sadistic mob. There is “no deliverer” in either story. Both of these Levites from Bethlehem of Judah are out for themselves; abandoning what they are supposed to reclaim. – Wayward and undelivered Israel. Like the story of Samson left the children, the final stories in Judges leave me very sad.
In all this terminal inadequacy of their judges and priests, Israel began to clamor for a king. That history also ends in tears. But the prophet Micah picks up a wavering note from these passages: another priest came out of Bethlehem.
But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be the ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.
(Micah 5:2)
Heidi Zartman,
Shafter, CA
Read more of The Reformed Herald here.
3 John R. Erickson,
4 Davidman, Joy. 1953. Smoke on the Mountain. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, p. 33.
5 Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co., p. 5.89.
6 Block, Daniel I. 1999. Judges, Ruth. Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, p. 474–475.
7 Jordan, James B. 1999. Judges: A Practical and Theological Commentary. Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, p. 281; Alter, Robert. 2013. Ancient Israel: The Former Prophets. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition, Locations 4258–4261.
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Dr. B.T.D. Smith, who taught the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) at Cambridge in the 1940s was into the sport of finding faults in the Bible, especially after he trashed his profession of faith in Christ. The testimony of eyewitnesses like J.R. Stott verify that Smith had no truck with Biblical authority and that a sadistic, almost Frankenstein-delight was to ridicule the supposed blunders in the Word of God. For example, one of his students vividly remembers his mocking tone when he addressed the history recorded in Luke 3:1,* when– after licking his chops– he lisped: “Thith pathage thimply brithleth with difficultieth!”
*The historical accuracy of this passage is challenged by higher critics. A good Bible commentary will explain the issues and
defend the accuracy of Luke’s history.”
During the early days of American frontier history, church membership was mostly at ebb tide. For example, in 1800 only 7 per cent of the population was churched (just as on The Mayflower, only twelve were members of the first New England Church). Thus, (at least for a few decades) the US frontier was a kind of “howling wilderness” where theological ignorance reigned supreme. To illustrate: historian Ross Phares in his book, The Story of Frontier Religion, recounts a Presbyterian evangelist who accosted a woman on the frontier while seeking a colleague of his own Presbyterian ilk: “Are there any Presbyterians in this country?” The woman, assuming that the stranger must be a hunter (as he had emerged out of the woods), responded:
“Wal, I just couldn’t say for sure about that. These woods is full of most very kind of varmet, but I ain’t paid much attention to ‘em. You might take a look around there on the back side of the cabin where my husband keeps his varmet hides, and see if he’s got any Presbyterian hides nailed up. If there’s any Presbyterians in this country, he’s bound to have caught one by now.”
On the mission field on the American West the Presbyterian ministers tended to be well-schooled, polite, and good-humored. For example, one minister who applied for lodging at a tavern was easily identified by the landlord before he spoke a word: “Stranger, I perceive that you are a clergyman. Please let me know if you are a Presbyterian or a Methodist.”
“Why do you ask?” queried the Presbyterian.
“Because I wish to please my guests, and I have observed that a Presbyterian minister is very particular about his own food and bed, and a Methodist about the feed and care of his horse.” “ Very well said,” responded the Presbyterian. “ I am a Presbyterian, but my horse is a Methodist.” (B.A. Botkin, A Treasury of American Anecdotes, p. 123)
John Calvin is famous for his kudos of Gregory the Great (540- 604), even praising him as “the last good pope.” If true, what did Gregory do to earn Calvin’s splendiferous acclamation and respect? Such praise deserves an investigation. Here’s a dossier of virtues:
a. Gregory excoriated abuses in the Church, including ungodly Popes who lorded themselves over God’s sheep.
b. Gregory opposed the idea of one, universal Pope, who ruled over all Christendom, defining a good pope as “the servant of the servants of God.”
c. Gregory was a zealous evangelist, deputizing missionaries to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons. When he first saw English boys in the slave market in Rome, his missionary gene went public, when he famously corrected an unflattering ethnic assessment that described them as mere“Angles,” to which he trumped,“Not Angles, but angels.” He seemed to view every stripe of man as a candidate for the Gospel.
d. He was a prolific writer of Dialogues and commentaries, such as Job, Ezekiel, and the four Gospels.
e. He battled the Arian and Donatist heretics to the glory of God.
f. He sent Augustine of Canterbury and Paulinus of York to preach the Gospel to the Anglo-Saxons.
g. He is called the patron saint of musicians, singers, students, and teachers, and perhaps even the father of the Gregorian Chant.
h. His epitaph contains the self-effacing appellation: the“consul of God.”
i. His most famous books are his Pastoral Care which delineate the duties of a bishop, and– his Dialogues which address the Medieval idea of the holy.
j. The second book of the Dialogues provide a biography of St. Benedict of Nursia.
k. While he possessed consummate administrative skills, he was particularly known for a consecrated life of prayer and contemplation.
l. He is tagged by some as “the father of Christian worship,” because of his zeal to make the worship in Rome more Biblical.
m. He wrote hymns, one of which is published in the blue Trinity Hymnal (#134), which begins: O CHRIST, OUR KING, CREATOR LORD, SAVIOR OF ALL WHO TRUST IN THY WORD,…”
Thus, Calvin crowned him not as “the good last pope,” but, “the last good pope.”
What words are the most suitable to adorn a Protestant pulpit where the lively preaching of the Word is at a premium? We hear of pulpits that showcase John 17:17, “Thy Word is Truth,” or 1Corinthians 2:2 ,“I am determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” or the Ten Commandments, or John 14:6 “I am the Way, the truth, and the life,” or Sola Scriptura, etc.* At the All Souls Church in London where the late John R.W. Stott ministered for many years we hear Stott’s biographer (Timothy Dudley-Smith) plugging the request of the Grecians for Christological preaching in John 2:21,“Sirs, we would see Jesus.” *Sola Scriptura is an excellent pulpit inscription. Yet, there are two warnings: First, it must not be used to nullify the doctrine of toto scriptura (that is, all of Scripture); and, it must not be employed to baptize the notion of nuda scriptura, which discounts the derivative authority of the creeds of the Church.
When churches hold a Missionary Conference, a banner or theme is often chosen to mark the occasion. Sometimes “errors of enthusiasm” are made such as employing Acts 1:8, where the resurrected Christ commanded,“And you shall be witnesses unto me in Judea, Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” Whatever could render such a wonderful text problematic? The principal reason is that by the time the Book of Acts was finished and with Paul under house arrest in Rome, he was preaching the Gospel “unhindered” to the Gentiles (which fulfilled the command of Acts 1:8). (See also Colossians 1:6, 23; Matthew. 24:14; 2 Timothy 4:17). As Dr. Richard Gaffin Jr, clarified: “Acts 1:8 is not addressed directly to the church today. It is not a mandate for present worldwide witness. The ‘you’ in Acts 1:8 is not a general ‘you”; it does not include the church of whatever time and place in history. It is addressed specifically and only to the apostles concerning worldwide task they eventually completed.”*
*A better slogan for a modern missionary conference is Matthew 28:19-20, which commands the Church to evangelize
“to the end of the age.”
The late John R.W. Stott preached a sermon at rch in London that warned the people about attending churches that were so distant from their immediate neighborhoods that they were forced to drive distances that were too remote and taxing to be practical. In his congregation was a young woman (a student) who traveled to All Souls from a great distance and whose tender conscience about cycling in front of the closer neighborhood churches began to throb guiltily. Her heart and soul thoroughly wedded to All Souls, she took steps to reroute her Sunday morning journey, avoiding the sight of all the competition, even if such maneuvering lengthened her travel time to All Souls (which it did).
Rev. Jim West
Sacramento, CA
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In our last update, I mentioned that Omaha Reformed was experiencing a new thing. Instead of having new members and families come and stay, as we had the first five years of our mission, we had several families either move closer to family, retire, or get assigned to different duty stations. Our numbers were and to a degree are diminished. However, over the last year and a half, we are encouraged that the Lord has brought us a number of individuals and two families. Some of these are already members, while others are still in the process of joining This past Sunday one of these families, Benjamin and Shellie Pratt, by the public profession of faith joined the member- ship of Omaha Reformed Church. We took 4 months going through The Basics of Christianity and the Reformed Faith. During the service, we received them as members and they could join in celebrating the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Afterward, we enjoyed a soup-themed fellowship meal at which we welcomed Isaiah Forba back from a three-month deployment. It was a joyful day.
Confirmation was held at Providence Reformed Church, Vermillion, SD on December 11, 20. We rejoice to have the confirmation of Dreaka and Cora Haverhals.
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