Day 79

Relativistic Ethics Then and Now

Read: Judges 17-18

Today some tell us that the absolute moral standards of the Bible are no longer meaningful for our society. Instead we should decide each situation in a way which seems best to human wisdom. One would think that this passage was written specifically for our day.

This is one of two appendixes attached to the book of Judges to illustrate the immorality which results when “every man did what was right in his own eyes” (17:6). We see here the tragic results of mixing true and false religion, of having superstitious ideas.

Micah steals from his own mother. She then uses the silver he returns to make an idol, saying it is consecrated to the Lord. He hires a Levite to tend the idol, thinking this will cause the Lord to prosper him. A group of Danites takes the idol and the Levite from him, threatening to harm him if he protests. The Levite is happy to be a priest for a whole tribe rather than of one family. The Danites go on to destroy “a people quiet and unsuspecting” (18:27) and to worship the stolen idol instead of going to the right place to worship, the tabernacle of Shiloh. Such are the things that happen when every man does what is right in his own eyes.

And in our own day, what moral chaos results when the nations abandon the Ten Commandments.

PRAYER
Father, work in our world, turning people back to you and to biblical morality. In Jesus’ name. Amen.