Judges: Strange stories

Start with a simple question: how does a nation forget its King? We walk through Judges like a crime scene, tagging the small compromises that compound into cultural collapse—then we watch God work anyway, often through people we wouldn’t pick. It’s raw, uncomfortable, and surprisingly hopeful.

We begin with Ehud, the left-handed assassin whose messy tactics free an oppressed people, and ask what it means for God to use flawed agents when honor has gone missing. From there we track Abimelech’s bloody climb—funded by others’ fear and convenience—and explore how a community that wants “one ruler to fix it” often invites a thornbush that burns it down. Gideon’s mixed legacy shows how pious words can hide abdication, and why leadership without obedience breeds leaders who love power more than truth.

Jephthah’s vow brings the hardest questions. We unpack the three primary readings—literal sacrifice, exile, and lifelong temple devotion—and focus on the core warning: rash bargains with God can destroy the very future we hoped to secure. Micah’s household idols and a Levite-for-hire reveal syncretism that looks spiritual but is built on self. When the Danites scale up that compromise, the rot goes national. Along the way, we highlight biblical typology—from donkeys as symbols of noble peace to echoes of earlier stories—that points beyond failed judges to a different kind of King.

The book’s darkest scene—the Levite’s concubine—mirrors Sodom to show how far things have fallen. Outrage arrives late and explodes into civil war. Our takeaway isn’t nostalgia; it’s repentance. Teach the next generation what God has done. Refuse syncretism even when it pays. Choose character over charisma. Start with your home, your church, and your block, and trust God to work through imperfect people while we keep our allegiance clear. If this conversation nudged you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and tell us: which story in Judges hits closest to home and why?

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet The New Interrogator
• 2:27 Why Judges Is So Chaotic
• 4:37 Ehud And The Fat King
• 11:20 God Using Flawed People
• 15:31 Abimelech’s Rise And Bloodlust
• 21:10 No King And Everyone Drifts
• 26:40 Gideon’s Legacy And Leadership
• 33:20 Jephthah’s Vow And Three Views
• 43:15 Syncretism: Micah, Idols, And A Hired Priest
• 51:20 The Danites And Corrupt Religion
• 56:20 Donkeys, Symbols, And Typology

Transcript

Meet The New Interrogator

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hey guys, welcome to Navigate Podcast. I'm Casey. I'm here with Justin today.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

What's up, man? Not much. How are you doing? I'm doing pretty fantastic. For those of you that don't know, Casey is going to be taking over the position of interrogator.

unknown 0:19

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

It's pretty spicy. It is. It's not as spicy as interrogator, but you know. You know, uh close enough, I would say. We're we're gonna be just fine. I think interrogator is maybe a better way to say it. It is a good title. I'll take it. Okay. Deal. So uh today I uh title of the podcast. Hang on. The new interrogator. Can we is there a way that we can like phonetically spell that out for people so they can see it, Fred? There's gotta be. Probably. Okay. I'm so sorry. Go ahead, Kinsey. No, you're good. What are we talking about today?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Uh so I have been reading through Judges, and I just finished that up two nights ago, a couple nights ago. That book is an acid trip. It is insane. And uh I'm I'm reading through it and I'm like, what is this for? What is what is this in here for? Why is this here? And so I compiled a list of some of those spicier stories that don't have necessarily an apparent meaning or maybe have some confusion. And I wanted to kind of go through that list, see what we're looking at as far as what's the biblical significance, what is the purpose of this narrative, and what we can take from it.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Okay, so that's great. I'm like, I'm proud of you too, because the average person, when they go to judges, does something like the first chapter skips to Gideon, skips to Samson, and then goes right into first Samuel. You know? Yeah, like that was great.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Really glad we got through that. And it's funny because the first chapter, Gideon and Samson, aren't even on my list because they make more sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

You know, I gotta tell you that probably the weirdest thing for me and judges, though, is like, how did he catch 300 foxes and tie their tails together? You know, there's some strange things in judges, but that one is like, yeah, is his uh supernatural strength more crazy than him catching 300 foxes? I don't think so. My vote goes for the the foxes, is the weirdest part of that.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

But you know, you know, that is, I mean, maybe he had supernatural dexterity as well.

Why Judges Is So Chaotic

SPEAKER_00 2:14

How did you how did you catch 300 foxes? I don't know. All right, all right, but I'm pumped about this. So um maybe a little background on the book of Judges first, then maybe help people out a little bit. Please. So Book of Judges is coming out of the book of Joshua. So you have the people that have come out of Israel or out of Egypt, sorry, and created the nation of Israel, they've gone to Sinai, they've uh spent 40 years in the wilderness, and then you know, one generation dies off, the second generation comes in, um, and Joshua kind of takes over. They actually go into the promised land, they kick a bunch of people out, but they don't kick everybody out, and then you have ensuing chaos because ultimately they didn't do what God told them to do.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yeah, it's it's amazing how many times in the book of Joshua it says, Don't let those people stay, give them no quarter, kick them all out, don't give them a don't give your son, don't give their women to your sons as wives. Don't take them as wives, don't give your sons to them, give your daughters to them.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Like, like, please don't.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

And Israel was like, cool, we won't do that.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Yeah, immediately does it. Israel was like, open the borders though. It's a great policy, works out really well for everyone. So not to be an edgelord, but I really feel like this is such an interesting book because it really is. Ah, I want to be careful. Like, in a lot of ways, if like the United States is kind of in this place, like it's been the breakdown from we're one nation with one vision trying to get things down, uh, to the degradation of the actual, let's say, religion of the people, if you want to think about it that way. Yeah. Um, and the movement into tribalism because you don't have clear uh connection, you know, there's no clear like national identity at this point, and the constant invasion of all these other, you know, um uh ideologies and things battling for what's going on. So to me, judges is uh very apropos.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Well, and it's funny that you say that because spoiler alert, the end of judges is a civil war.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Uh yes, uh 100% that's what's going on. And it gets really bad for wow. Well, all right, we'll have to get into it. Okay, so we're not but that's not even necessarily the focal point, although maybe we'll come back to it. What's the what's the first weird thing we're tackling today?

SPEAKER_01 4:37

The second half of Judges 3, the story of Ehud killing King Eglon.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Eglon, the fat king.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yeah, and so like so fat. He's so fat that this and like the Bible specifically mentions that he is so fat that the sword that Ehud uses gets swallowed up by his fat rolls, he can't get it out. Yeah, and then his men wait an inordinately long time to go check on him because Ehud said he was on the toilet.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Which which for them could be like he might be in there for a while. He might based on what we've seen him eat. Yeah, you know, and you gotta ask, like, I mean, how fat do you have to be for I think it says the blade of Ehud's, you know, uh sword or whatever it was was a cubit. Yeah. So roughly the size of a man's forearm, you know what I mean? And then a handle on top of that. So we're talking like a foot and a half just disappears into the person. The handle just keeps going. You know what I mean? This was a this was nice. This was like my 500-pound life or whatever. What's nice? My 800 pound life. My, you know, whatever it was. But this man, um, he was eating good. He he was too many pizza rolls.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Yeah, well, and the crazy thing about that too is like being fat in in ancient times was a sign of wealth. So that's like a that guy was rolling in it.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

We were just talking, what Fred, you'd remember the podcast. I don't, but it was this uh we were talking about how a great way to insult somebody, you know, kind of a kind of a roundabout way to do it, be like, you would be royalty in a tribe, you know?

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

So So what's the significance? Like, what can we take from this story?

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Man, um, great question. Like when I look at this story, you have uh essentially the oppression of the Israelite people. You have Ehud who's listed as a left-handed man. Um, so left-handed in the Bible tends to mean sneaky, uh, not great, uh, a little sketch in general. It's not talking about just somebody who's left-handed in general, but somebody who's left-handed is somebody who's uh sly. Yeah. So what you have is uh a shady person who tends to do shady things that God is like, you're the guy. Uh you want to know, like the first takeaway for me in this story is that God is using shady people. Okay, he's not he's not a great uh individual. Um, he's not um the nice, you know, he's no Joshua, you know what I mean? Who's like we're gonna do this for the Lord and everyone served the Lord. The fact that he's a left-handed man right off the bat is this evidence that uh for me, God uses really messy and not put together people to actually take down wicked people.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Yeah. So well, and the other interesting thing about the story is the fact that Ehud told the king's men a lie in there and then to get away. So, like uh like that feeds into this shadiness of the thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Where's the honor? Yeah, there you know what I mean. Where's the where's the calling out? You know, at least in in other stories, you have some kind of clear uh, you know, um, come out and meet me, or we're going to battle together, or something, or or maybe the bad guy is doing something shady, so something shady kind of happens in return. Yeah, this is just a straight I came to this guy, uh, I fooled everyone and I murdered him in his bathroom and then I left him there dying. And then I went out and told everybody it's time to rebel and set people free.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Yeah.

God Using Flawed People

SPEAKER_00 8:14

So to me, this is uh I've been on um oh Facebook probably too much lately. I I like I I should get on X more often, but it just seems like where people go to destroy each other on a more consistent basis. And it's Facebook's probably not better, but I don't know. I posted something with um, you know, all the stuff that's going on with uh Venezuela, yeah. You know what I mean? Like the you know, the the president and all the different stuff going down, and they pull him out, and like, you know, uh a ton of people are like, what a horrible thing to do. It was terrible. And I I love to go to you know the book of Habakkuk for something like this, you know, where where basically the prophet Habakkuk, if you guys haven't read this before, uh kind of a it's an interesting book and it's worth it's worth going through. But he he basically says, God, how come you let wickedness continue on? Like, why are you letting wicked people do wicked things? Why is this happening? And God's like, Don't worry, I'm gonna take these really, really wicked people and I'm gonna use them to punish your wickedness, right? And then the the back end of Habakkuk is like, you can't use someone more wicked than the wicked person, you know, the wicked people we are to punish the wicked. That would be a wicked thing to do. He's like, absolutely not. God can use whatever he wants for judgment at any time, and we're supposed to celebrate the punishment of the wicked, yeah, even if it's wickedness that's producing that. And look, the whole book of judges is kind of wicked people doing wicked things in wicked circumstances, and God still being glorified because justice is being done. Yeah. To me, the story of Ehud, a lot of people want to look at it as like uh man, he he did a great job. He killed this king, he liberated these people. And I think that the story there is ultimately talking about how Israel um and if you how Israel is compromising, but like let me let me explain the whole book of Judges to me is a downward slide. Because the beginning of the book of Judges starts with this idea that um, you know, there's they're kind of um starting to drift already. And the the point that it makes right away is that they let these people stay when they weren't supposed to, and they were supposed to go to war with them, and it makes the point right away that they did not raise up the next generation the way that they were supposed to. And in fact, let me find it. Yeah, it's in chapter two. All that generation also were gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which he had done for Israel. So you see this beginning and this continual slide throughout the book where things get worse and worse and worse. And and what do you have? Well, the first thing that you have, and and and you see this even in Isaiah 3, God will give wicked rulers to wicked people, and he'll he'll use those people. It doesn't mean like God's like didn't use that person. If it's a wicked person, he can't use them. Well, he's using you and he's using me for one. So there's there's that. But uh to me, Ehud is the story of God using a tricky, uh wicked person in a sense to bring about redemption for his people, and the story there should be those things happen, especially in broken times when wicked people tend to run everything.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Well, it's funny because that kind of feeds right into the next story in judges. I want to talk about. Okay. Judges 9, Abimelech. The judge who is not a judge, the judge who is not a judge and kills his 70 brothers. 69, typically, I think. Yes, right? Well, did Shechem who's the who's the guy who gets away? So Gideon had 70 sons. At least. Well, it it specifies 70 sons, and Abimelech kills the other ones, yeah, and one gets away. So I don't know if Abimelech's counted in that 70.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

But so it's funny because it seems like he's the one judge who is not elected by God. All right. So you have this guy who kind of forces his way to the top and says, Well, you know, instead of having 70 people rule over you in seventy different areas, how about you guys give me money and I'll take care of all these other rulers, and you guys can, you know, you guys can serve me. Then at least you only have one king. You don't have a bunch of kings. Um, it works. These guys from Shechem give him um, is it from Shechem? I think it's that area, but that they basically give him a bunch of money, and he goes and he puts to death 69 of his brothers on the same stone. So he invades, kills all of his brothers except for one. And while they're partying and whooping it up, the one brother that got away, it says stands on a mountaintop and yells down to them this parable. This is a good reminder, by the way, that uh when we think mountains, I'm from Colorado, you know, originally, and like the you know, the mountains we have in Colorado, you're not hearing anybody yelling from those mountains, you know. That's no that's a long way up. It's not happening. We're talking about a very different terrain here, much smaller mountain mountains or hills. You know what I mean? Um, so he's yelling down from this mountaintop this parable, and he basically tells them uh about a fig tree and a uh a vine, you know, that produces wine and these different things. He's like, you guys could have had these things that would have worked together and would have been a blessing, but you demanded somebody rule over you, right? So here's a quick um um picture of what's gonna happen moving forward with King Saul a little bit, right? When you demand, no, that there needs to be a king that rules over us, there's a little bit of an issue, but we can get into that somewhat. Um but this uh this rolls into a problem where it ultimately says that God puts an evil spirit between Abimelech and these people, and they end up eating each other alive in the process. So, what do we? I mean, if you're asking me what's the big lesson we learn from this, geez, um I think this is one of those ones where you're just watching evil unfold and the natural heart of man, which is I have to run all of it and I will leverage other people to get what I want. And when that kind of nefarious nonsense, which by the way started with eHud, right, moves into the next generation, it becomes more egregious. Now I'm not just using shady principles to destroy wicked people, I'll use it on my own family so that I can personally get ahead. Yeah, and now we're drifting a little every day. We drift further from God. Every day. But that's that's kind of um that's kind of the thrust of what's happening, but it's definitely a foreshadowing of uh some of what you're gonna see later on in in Saul, uh in Samuel.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Yeah, and so two two things I want to kind of bunny trail off of from what you just what you're talking about. There, the first one is you know, you mentioned there the people are demanding a king. In Judges, it it says over and over, uh, I I think three or four times it said, and in those days there was no king in Israel, and the people did what was right in their own eyes. Yeah. And it's not just I I would almost contest and and I I see if you're you think you would agree. Yeah. It's not saying there was no man that was a king, it's that the people of Israel had not kept God as their king.

Abimelech’s Rise And Bloodlust

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yeah, it's another way of saying there was nobody there who is uniting them around a common vision. There wasn't um there wasn't really a law of the land going on, it had devolved into tribalism. They couldn't agree on who the king was. So we'll kill the people that we don't like that are in charge so we can consolidate power. Um some people would say Israel was never meant to have a king at all. God was always supposed to be their king. I would say that the way that the law is written in the Old Testament um sets it up for a monarchy and kind of uh plans on it working that way, but you don't um you don't want the kind of king these people want. Yeah. And in the absence of a king, people that are you know making themselves king are not always the most savory uh kind of individuals that you want to deal with. But but certainly where you don't have is it Hosea oh geez, what is it, four six or something like that? Um my people perish for a lack of knowledge, you know what I mean? My you know, that there's this desire to jump in and get things done and make it happen. And oftentimes in in situations like this one, it's like, man, just eat evil reigns in the hearts of people and be very careful, allowing convenience or like uh we'd rather just serve one person to uh create the problem that it does. And in uh Shechem, I I think that's his name. So I should go back and then Shechem is replaced.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Jotham is the son.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Jotham's the sun. Okay, thank you. He he literally says this. He's like, you could have had a you know, the vines you could uh that produce wine, you could add the figs instead. You just settled for the thorns and thistles. And now that's what you're gonna reap. That's what you're gonna get, is you're being invited in and you're letting thorns and thistles be a covering for us, and that's all that you're gonna get, and eventually you'll be burned by fire. And that's exactly what happens. I mean, in a real way, he he gives them a prophecy of what's going to happen to them. You could have um uh enjoyed the good things that God would have for you. Instead, you chose the cursed ground that we see in Genesis 3. And then, like I said earlier in in Judges 9 23, then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem, and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech. Eventually, even though they chose him to be king, they turn on each other and both sides are punished for it badly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Uh, the other quick one I wanted to do before jumping to the next one.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Um Hang on, real quick. Can I bring up the fact that Abimelech was killed by a lady and he was so afraid of dying because a lady killed him that he had a shield bearer kill him for him? I s yes. Do you know who who else does that? Who? King Saul. Oh, yeah, right. Like he gets wounded and he's like, You you you go ahead, you gotta kill me, right? Yeah. So uh eventually evil destroys itself. Yeah, you know, yeah, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Um Abimelech being the son of Gideon. Um Gideon in judges is at least semi-honorable, and yet all of his sons get taken out by his one illegitimate son.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Um it it seems almost like a poor legacy that that Gideon has here, and yet He's a terrible leader.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yeah. And hot take, you ready? I was talking to another pastor about this. They try to make Gideon king, and he basically says, No, uh, I want the Lord to rule over you, but go ahead and give me a bunch of money. Takes the money, creates an uh, you know, a priestly garment and some other stuff, and basically says, like, yeah, that this will be fine. A lot of people would say, Oh, Gideon did the right thing because only the Lord was supposed to rule. I think he it was a false piety. I think he's trying to act like, oh no, no, no, no, the Lord will rule over you. Just keep doing what you're doing. I liberated you guys from these people. Give give me some of your wealth, and then I'll, you know, yeah, you'll you guys will figure it out from here. And it's like, no, that's that's actually terrible, right? Gotcha. And so if you have 70 sons, uh, and I think you're already seeing him abdicating uh what he's supposed to be doing, it makes all the sense in the world to me that you got a bunch of kids who are also a mess and potentially dodging what they should be doing.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

And maybe you're not even already leaving a good legacy. So what what is it if it goes up and flies? Yeah.

No King And Everyone Drifts

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Gideon's uh Gideon does some cool stuff. And again, the book of judges is this reminder, I think, to all of us that um uh the perfect leader doesn't happen. Yeah. And I would say this it also seems like God doesn't raise up perfect groups either. It seems like he picks individuals. He puts people around those individuals to help help them accomplish what he wants to accomplish. And then he goes and he does something else. And in our our world that I like, look, I hate to say this, but even when we're talking about like ecclesiology and the way that churches are put together, uh, there's a big push for in a lot of different conversations about a plurality of leadership. And, you know, we have you know 12 guys all help and run this thing together and they share responsibility and they do this stuff. And I'm like, I just I don't see that model in the Bible. Yeah. I I hate to say, I'm not saying you shouldn't have elders. I'm not saying that people shouldn't have each other's back and hold each other accountable. But if you want to know what I feel like you see consistently throughout the whole Bible, God raising an imperfect per an imperfect person up for a particular task at a particular time to accomplish what he set out before them. And then you find out that that person is imperfect. Yeah. And it doesn't work exactly the way that you think it's gonna work, or it doesn't go exactly the way that you think it's gonna go. And no matter how many good people are around that person, people still suck and they fail. And people are like, well, if you had the right eldership or the right people, or this wasn't happening, these things wouldn't happen. I'm like, no, man, every church in the New Testament failed. All of them eventually break. The fruit that God wanted to get out of out of them, that is produced. Yeah, good, glorifying, amazing things happen. But if you're looking for some kind of leadership structure that is never going to fail and is just going to be perfect and totally works out, I'm like, then then you are looking for something, in my opinion, that the Bible doesn't provide outside of Christ Himself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Well, and it's it's not like we see churches fail, we see all these things, but your your point about the fruit, we don't see all of them all fail and the decline of Christianity. We see the growth of Christianity and the output of that exactly despite those things.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

So yeah, it's a it's a great story. Um, and like I said, it's a it's a good reminder to us, but really, like I said, this is a great study in what happens when everything has kind of gone south. And what I would say is if you read this with a pietistic mind, your tendency is to get into a war with yourself and with God. God, why would you use scumbag people and scumbag places to do scumbag things and then put like your name on it in some sense? And I would say God is never the author of sin, but oh my word, He will absolutely use broken people in broken circumstances. And when I say broken, I don't mean it in the nice way that we often mean it, which is like they were just really hurting and they were all victims. No, a lot of them are victimizers, a lot of them are uh doing really shady, terrible things. God uses that too to bring about the Messiah. It's these it's these jacked up tribes warring with each other with terrible leaders who are inevitably bringing about God's will. Yeah, and that sucks. We I just I don't think we like that. It doesn't sit well with us and it's not comfortable, but but I would tell you it's the story of how God interacts with humanity and eventually it's redeemed. And if you're if you're looking for a perfect uh person, you're only ever gonna find that in Christ, you know, and so it's worth worth noting.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Back into the back into the darkness here.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Let's let's delve. So the next one is uh Judges 11, Jephthah, his his vow and what happens to his daughter. So I wanted to start with his vow because a lot of people will read that story and they'll go, How could God have asked him to do that to his daughter and everything? But we have to look first at this very specific vow he made. And I like why would he say and so the vow he makes is God, if you give me victory uh against my enemy here, uh I will offer up the first thing that comes out of my house. Oh read it.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

I'll read it. Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, If you willing, if you will indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be done that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the Lord's, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering. So Jephthah crossed over to the sons of Ammon, the fighting begins, they they end up winning, right? Then Jephthah came to the house of Mizpah, behold, the daughter uh his daughter was coming out to meet him with tambourines and with dancing, and now she was his one and only child besides her, and he had no son or daughter, and when he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, Alas, my daughter, you have brought me uh very low, and you are among those who trouble me, for I have given my word to the Lord, and I cannot take it back. Right? And so God didn't ask him to make that vow. Nope. Right? Kind of a stupid vow to make.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Like, what's going to come out of the doors of his home? Does he does he have cattle that just wander in and out all the time?

Gideon’s Legacy And Leadership

SPEAKER_00 24:50

That's a great question. I mean, and was it was it like when we think about this, is it is it specifically the door of his house, or is it like the first thing that comes out of you know the fenced in area? Like what like what was he thinking at that time? Coin flip. I I don't know, but I will say this great lesson to learn, everybody. Don't just make willy-nilly promises to God. Yeah, don't just throw something up and think you're being pious or put together by saying, God, I'll definitely do this if this happens. Man, you don't know. Like, chill out before you before you start doing things like that or bargaining like that, especially when God has not asked you um to make those kind of concessions. You know, just don't just don't go there. But um okay, so your your question is, does he burn his daughter alive? Yeah. All right. Um so I'm gonna do my best with this, okay? Honestly, I would love to tell you that this uh there's a very solid, comfortable answer to this. I don't know that there is, but I'm gonna give you my I'll give you my best shot, okay? So maybe maybe three views on this uh would be helpful. The first is that um he does it, he burns his daughter alive. God doesn't ask for this, he's not pleased by it, but this idiot goes ahead and does what he told God he would do, and his daughter goes along with it because she's also trying to honor God. And the lesson in that capacity would be something along the lines of man, they're drifting, they're forgetting the law, they're forgetting what God has said, and they're beginning to act like pagan kings even when God is helping them get different stuff done. Some of the uh some of the things getting sacrificed on the altar uh in the name of doing the right thing are horrible, wicked things that God would not have you give up in your pursuit of righteousness. Like a good lesson would be something like don't sacrifice your family uh in the name of trying to do evangelism. If you are destroying your family in the process of trying to help other people find Christ, that's not a pleasing thing to God. But a lot of people will lay things on the altar before God, like pastors' kids. You know what I mean? Oftentimes have the absolute hardest time, and you can chalk it up to spiritual warfare. You can also chalk it up to I was so busy doing everything else that I did a terrible job raising my kids. That's not godly. You shouldn't sacrifice that on the altar. Now, um, I want to get even farther down the line and connect it with where I think we're going, but maybe we'll come back to it. Okay. It does seem like the story of Lot um in in Genesis, you know what I mean? It's like this this guy offers his daughters, right? Uh to up to be had by these horrible men. Yep. You know what I mean? In exchange for, you know, not not giving these angels over, which you could say is pious. I think it's really jacked up. And again, just a good reminder: God's plan was to save his family and bring them all out. And his idea was all bargain to get what God wants by um doing something absolutely terrible in the process. Yeah. Okay. That's section one is he actually burns his daughter uh by fire. Second option uh that some scholars will say is that she was then exiled. Like he lost his one and only daughter. She's sent into exile to the outside of the camp, you know what I mean, and is and is put out and basically is not allowed to return. She loses her family, she loses her well-being, and is sent out into nothingness to go find another nation or something to live with, um, which is somewhat interesting because, like, the story of Christ in general is him leaving, being, you know, pushed out by his own people and dying outside of the camp. You know what I mean? And it's this kind of typological picture of Christ where he's the fulfillment of this vow and it's his own death in the process. That even the even the the Levitical system had the Azazel, right? The scapegoat, yeah, where they would put the sins of the nation on this particular goat and they would send it out saying, Azazel, take it away, take it away, and it would die out in the wilderness. A lot of people are like, that's probably what happened. So maybe she didn't die, maybe she was just exiled, you know what I mean, and found solace on God's thumb, like like holes, you know.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Uh okay, the third and probably most comfortable approach to this, and there's some uh textual opportunity here where you could say, okay, maybe maybe this was the case uh is that she is basically given over to the temple to be a uh like a virgin and a and a servant at the temple for the rest of her life, sacrificed to God, but not physically killed. The reason um people will land on this one is because of the heavy emphasis in the text on it being his only child and the uh the mourning around her not finding a husband. So if you look at the text, it says, um let me see if I can find it real quick. So she said to him, My father, you have given your word to the Lord uh do to me as you have said, since the Lord has avenged your enemies and the sons of Ammon. She said to her father, let this thing be done for me, let uh let me alone two months that I may go to the mountains and weep because of my virginity, I and my companions. He sends her away. That seems to be the thrust of it. At the end of the two months, she returned to her father, who did according to the vow which he made, and she had no relations with a man. Okay. That's a very interesting thing to say. Yeah. Um he follows through with the vow, and it's very sad because she had no relations with a man. Why is that the sad part? Not the her burning to death.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Right? So if you want the place that I would probably land if I'm going to explain this, um uh the daughters of Israel went yearly to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah and the Gileadite four days um in the year. Even that, the daughter of Israel, it's not the just the women of Israel, it's specifically like the daughter, daughters oftentimes is used even as a picture for the young women specifically, or the virgins. So the the odds are, I guess, if you're trying to be textually honest, it's difficult. This is probably the best textual argument is that she's given over to the temple or given over to God to be a virgin for the rest of her life. And this is a very sad uh thing because there will be no offspring uh for Jephthah, there's no uh name associated with him in the future, and she forevermore remains a virgin and is not allowed to have kids or a family. Gotcha. Those are the those are kind of the three takes. I like I said, I I think just a common reading of it I think is pretty tough. Common reading to me looks like he burned his daughter at the stake, but there are some interesting uh phrases used and parts of the text that would make it seem like um maybe this wasn't as shady as it looks like right off the cuff. So I hope that I hope that helps. That may not answer your question, but it might shed some light on potentially what happened.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

No, it and it gives it gives a better grasp of all right, what can we look at here? And like it's not just there's not just one black and white, yeah, this sucks.

Jephthah’s Vow And Three Views

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Yeah, yeah, there's there's at least a couple of different potential things that happen in this capacity. What we do know later is that Jephthah is in Hebrews 11. He he makes it into the hall of faith, which is crazy to me. I'm like, this guy was not a good dude. You know, he did shady things. What makes me warn more to the idea of the perpetual virginity? Um I said not like not like Mary, okay, but this idea that she maintained her virginity and lived that kind of life in exile, not able to have kids or family or any of that. Um, there's enough in the text that makes me think that's probably the case. And the fact that God says later on he did the right thing, it seems like, makes me think that that's probably closer to what actually happened. But great question. Very rarely does somebody bring up Jephthah to me. Um, and so you your prayers are answered for those of you today who are wondering about Jephthah. There you go. All three of you. Yes, yes, you and you and your one friend that you brought it up with. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Yeah, yeah. All right. Next one I want to go to uh is Micah. So Judges 17 and 18. Yeah. Micah, his idols, his Levitical priest, and then the Danites taking them from him. Yeah. And so the the story is uh Micah's mother comes to him. No, so he goes to his mother and says, Hey mom, I stole a bunch of silver from you, but I want to give it back.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Sort of. It starts with her cursing whoever stole this money. Yes, right? So so it starts out with his mother saying, Somebody stole a bunch of this, curse is on this person's head. He is um pagan enough, or let's say, like to me, the whole guts of this story is syncretism. Okay, so I'll just show my cards right away. Again, as we're drifting farther and farther, God means less and less um in differences between cultic practices and functionally the way of uh what you could call Yahwehism. You know what I mean? Like it's they've they've slowly been working together, and now you have a Levitical priest who is stealing stuff from his mom, and his mom is like, you know, I did this, and uh, and and oh, is it Micah or is it the Levitical priest?

SPEAKER_01 34:47

Let's all who actually does it. Um Micah 17. Micah, I believe he makes himself a Levitical priest.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

That's what it is. He gets the Levitical priest. But okay, so you have Micah basically being aware enough of uh curses and believing that they're real that he is like, actually, mom, I took it. My bad. And the common thinking in this day was you couldn't undo a curse, you had to follow up with a blessing. So it would have to be the opposite. You couldn't undo it, you had to like um give a functional blessing in its place instead of the curse. And so instead of her taking it back and saying, I won't curse you, instead, she just blesses him, which for some people seems you know weird. Like, okay, he just stole a bunch from you. Why are you why are you now blessing him? Well, because the only way to undo the curse is to do a blessing instead. Okay, this makes sense. Yeah. So we're starting in this story with a really shady uh circumstance where a guy steals a bunch of stuff, he comes clean to his mom, and his mom kind of brushes it off and says, Okay, then you're blessed, then it'll be all right because you're the jerk that stole this. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

But in blessing him, she then has an idol made for him and a graven image.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Yeah, which was the equivalent to her of like, okay, we're gonna make this a God thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

Which is is just brutally ironic considering God says, don't make idols.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Yeah, it's wild. I'm trying to think what psalm it is that it says um you've uh the people who worship idols have become like them, just dumb. They can't hear, they don't understand, you know what I mean? And in this syncretistic culture where it's like idol worship and uh still being the people of Israel has just morphed itself together in a really ugly way. And again, just as this reminder, all the people that they were supposed to kick out and get rid of, uh, they don't, and this happens. And in fact, I think it's in chapter three, God says, because you didn't kick these people out, now you won't be able to. Now you're going to be stuck with them, and you're getting all the curses that come along with this. So even if you want to get rid of these people now, it's too late. Which you're not able to.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

It's something God actually does a few times. Um, I think about just tangenting for a second here.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Um, right before the 40 years that the Israelites spend in the desert, they send their 12 spies in, and 10 of them come back and say, No, we can't do this. And God's like, Great, because you didn't believe me that you could. Now you can't. Now you can't. And they're like, No, no, we'll do it now. And then they get wrecked.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Yeah. Yeah. It's very Romans 1-esque. I will give you over to the thing that you're saying you want more than trusting me. Yep. And so uh again, just as you guys are reading this text, what I want you to see as you're thinking about it is syncretism unfolding. Yeah. That we have a combination of, if you want to think about it into Christianity with a bunch of other pagan nonsense. There we go. So somebody gets saved and they've come out of some uh, let's say, Catholicism. They also have some like santeria in their background or something. And I'm kind of fusing all of these things together um to make one amalgamation that is actually repugnant to God and disgusting. But I think I'm doing God a favor uh by doing the very things he tells me not to do in his name.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Right. So I'm making idols, you know what I mean? Uh, and I'm doing this kind of stuff. And this guy comes out, he's like, Oh, I need a Levitical priest, you know, and he finds he finds this Levite and he's like, now, now I'm set up before God. Yeah, now I'm good. I got a priest, I got these things, I got right. My mom blessed me instead of cursing me for doing this stuff. I'm a very godly man. Uh-huh. I'm doing I'm doing great. And and this is such a great text if you're a pastor. Because this guy offers the Levite, I'll take care of your room and board. I'm gonna pay you a great yearly salary instead of doing what you're supposed to be doing. How about you come and just do this right here with me? You know what I mean? And he he yeah, he takes my live in pastoral wear the e-fod, I'll I'll do the I'll do the whole thing. Yeah, I'll do the whole thing. This is a really cushy setup, and I'll just let the nonsense and the idolatry that's going on continue to go on because it's a good situation for me. I think about all of the different things that people try to combine with Christianity in our world today, you know. So you have um, let's see, like a psychology and psychiatry kind of mentality going on. Um, you know what I mean, where it's like we're trying to blend the Jordan Peterson, you know, uh, you know, archetypical uh anthropa, you know, uh anthropomorphization of you know these different things. And and then also like uh here's a good, you know, anthro, it's a good anthropology for the people, you know, and it and and again, I I get it. I get why, and I'm not saying there's not some value and something here or something there, but a lot of people have kind of wholesale been like, yeah, this is good truth. We can put these things together, we can put evolution and Christianity together, we can put uh Buddhism and Christianity together. For the most part, because the same, you know, how you're supposed to live your life functionally works together, or the self-help section, or you know, positive thinking. Love is love, crowd. It's we can take the aspects of Christianity that we like and we'll blend them with a bunch of other stuff, and we'll ultimately say it's it's good. All of it is pursuing God and doing the right things. And because God is good and he's loving, he'll understand if we don't get something quite right. And there's for the priest, there's money behind doing it this way. That there is it will be lucrative for you to bail on hard truths and the actual system that God has put in place, and instead uh there's a there's a better way to do this for him that will pad his own, you know, uh take take care of bankroll him, you know what I mean? Give him what he needs to live his life and and do whatever he needs to do.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

It's funny, I think uh you kind of used uh a similar example before, but he's taking money to compromise on his principles, he's playing the harlot with his religion.

Syncretism: Micah, Idols, And A Hired Priest

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Absolutely. He is bastardizing the holiness and the God, uh, the holiness of God in the name of a superficial comfort, which is no comfort at all. Because what ultimately happens in this story, to your point, is a bunch of Danites who are looking for a place to uh to stay because they don't want to go conquer the place that God actually gave them to conquer, find a uh a weaker, smaller group of people that are separated and they decide, we'll stay there instead. That'll be easier than doing what God told us to do. And what do you need uh to go do those things? Well, we need a shady priest. Yeah. And so they steal one. And so they steal the shady priest. And and now, and what's funny is because he's already compromised once, you know what I mean? He these guys are like, well, why don't you just come with us and do this? Because it's better for you to have a you know um a larger platform and say this to us instead of staying just here in this house. And he's like, Hey, all right, you know, you want to fund what I'm doing, you want to help me out? Sure, I'll go I'll go with you guys. Doesn't ask, you know, questions, doesn't push back, no moral compass at all exists in this in this Levite. Uh and it's a good reminder that it just doesn't mean anything. Now, the the typology in judges is just wild, and you can go really far with it. I mean, if you want to think about the the priesthood at the time of Christ, you know what I mean, that's just serving its own gain, it just wants power, it just wants authority and it wants money from the people and is not actually interested in doing the things that God told them to do. And when Jesus is standing in front of them, they're like, kill that guy. He's really getting in the way of the stuff that we're trying to accomplish. I mean, it's there's a lot of parallels, but um, ultimately, this guy ends up going with a group of more terrible people, theoretically, uh, because it's a lucrative opportunity for him to do so. And he continues in this process of being a godless priest who's more interested in syncretism and uh making everybody happy than he is in making God happy. And because he carries a title, you know, anyway or a lineage of Levite, everybody thinks, well, he must be blessed and it must be okay. And again, he says it's good, therefore I'm good. Check a box. You look at the beginning of Judges, and it's like, okay, we're coming out of this, then the next generation isn't taught these things, and then we have uh tricky, godless liberators, and tricky godless liberators lead to more bad family, bad family leads to bad blood, and and we just kind of go through this process of brokenness into more brokenness into more brokenness. And it doesn't mean God isn't using those things to bring about what he wants to, but you can see the natural consequences of sin and stupidity and their first sin, which was allowing sin to go on in their in their lives and allowing these people to stay that were never meant to stay. And now I am pulling the Solomon, you know what I mean? Where I I'm teaching everybody else about wisdom, but I have, you know, uh, you know, thousands of wives or you know, the thousands of uh concubines on the side or whatever else that I'm also serving who are going to turn my hearts away from God and um I'm gonna end up serving them at the end of the day rather than God. Something else in the book of Judges, too, which is kind of interesting, is um some of these judges, and I was thinking about this because of Solomon, sorry. Some of these judges um it brings up that they had a bunch of donkeys. Do you know what I'm talking about? It says this guy had 30 sons, 30 donkeys, 30 cities, 70 donkeys. Yeah, and then there's another guy where it says he had 40 sons or 30 sons, 40 grandkids, exactly, and then 70 donkeys. Uh donkeys in that particular time uh were a symbol of nobility and a symbol of peace and authority. So if somebody's riding a donkey, um, it was a way, it was a way of communicating. I'm not on a war horse, so I'm not here to destroy you. I'm actually here to make peace and I'm gonna rule over you. Interesting. Uh so like this is why um David, when he's handing off the kingdom to Solomon, says, Give him my mule, give him my give him my donkey. He can he can ride through on that. It's a symbol of I'm your king, I will rule over you, I'm here to bring peace as opposed to war. And so when you you read these things and you're like, What's with the donkeys and the people and the cities? What does that have to do with anything? Okay. Well, the donkey is a is a picture of nobility, it's a picture of peace as opposed to riding on a war horse, and it's a picture of somebody ruling over you. Fast forward to Jesus riding into right the you know, the city on a donkey. Why is he doing this? Well, he's not declaring war, but he is declaring nobility. He's coming in to bring peace, and he's also stating his own authority when he does this. This is a symbol of a king. Does that make sense? Yeah, so just it's almost like the Bible uses typology all the time. All the time. It's it's relentless. And if we went into the typology of everything in Judges, we would just implode because there is so much. But um, I think the most important thing to focus on is how mess begets mess and God still works in the mess. Yeah, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

So and you alluded to this earlier, and uh one of the places we're driving towards here, and probably I would contend on the in the top five of passages that are least preached on ever, yeah, Judges 19, the Levite returning his concubine, her death being chopped up into 12 pieces and set across Israel.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

Yeah. What do we get from that? What what? Okay, so it's brutal, right? So this um this guy is interesting. Uh okay, so he's a Levite, right? So we're back to okay, it's not just the kingdom is being polluted, now it's the, you know, obviously the view of God is being polluted, now that even the priesthood itself is being polluted, now we're syncretistic in our thinking. And then the next thing that we see is how this is affecting everything else. We have a guy who is uh he is married to um a very unfaithful woman or calls her a concubine, but it seems like the relationship that he has Yeah, it calls her a concubine, but it calls him her husband. Right. Yeah, very much uh an interesting way to look at things. Um you could start right there and say the relationships are complicated. Oh, yeah, that's that's what happens in a blown-up world. We got sugar daddies over here, and we got the theoretical husband, but we live together, but we're not technically married, but we've been going steady for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Whatever.

The Danites And Corrupt Religion

SPEAKER_00 47:46

I think we should start calling those past concubines, right? Yeah, of course. Perfect. Yeah, so so technically she's you know, she's my girlfriend, but man, you know, we we got kids and you know, whatever. It's your concubine. It's messy, yeah. It's it's messy. So um this guy goes to get his concubine back, who is at her dad's house, of course, because she cheated on her man and has been living a very different lifestyle. He goes to get her. And instead of going and getting her and bringing her back home the way that he should, he ends up staying and gets coerced to stay again and again and again. And this is uh this is like a an interesting thing to think about right off the cuff because it's like your um you putting off the things that you're supposed to do or what end up creating the mess in the first place. Um, but he he ends up finally getting out of Dodge and going, and instead of staying at a closer place, which was uh, let's say not Israelite people, um, they go a little bit farther and they go to this place that's part of Israel, technically part of Benjamin. And um there the story unfolds a lot like another story. They go into the town square, they're looking for a place to stay, a guy comes out to meet them and invites them in. A horde of people quickly arrive who want to rape these people. All right. Um, so this should smell like the story of Lot immediately. You know, it's the same story of these angels going to the town, and then you know, they get invited into this place, and you know, he gets them out because he knows something is awry, it's not gonna go well, people show up at the house. Um, in this story, the guy offers some stuff, uh, his daughter, I think, and the concubine, and they're like, No, we want the guy. And then the guy ends up just taking the concubine out and kind of throwing her out there and closing the door. And it says basically that she's raped and abused until morning. The guy comes out, um, and it's weird. Yeah. Like, okay, so like everything that I read in this is this man has a ton of bitterness in his heart, potentially because of this girl's lifestyle. Maybe he's frustrated about what happened in general, but he literally at one point is over at his donkeys loading things up, and while she's over on the steps, calls to her and says, Hey, get up, let's let you know, let's go, and finds out then that she's dead. So, like, what you didn't go check on her? You like you did you it's it's horrific. Yeah. Okay, and then classic man doesn't uh doesn't explode and get angry about it until things have gone so far that that's the you know, that that's the only thing that you can do, and he goes too far the opposite direction. Yep. All right, so like if he would have just done what he was supposed to do, none of this would have happened. If he wouldn't have compromised, none of this stuff would have happened. And then after everything freaking goes wrong, that's when he finally decides to do something about it and and it goes too far. But in this story, he then takes this woman, cuts her up into 12 pieces, and sends her to the 12 tribes of Israel so that they could be um dumbfounded at the horrific thing that has happened. Um here's the here's the take. When I'm trying to think of the best way to say this, um when people were writing, when like biblical writers, Hebrew writers are writing, they're generally writing with what you said before, typology, which is to say, I'm telling a bigger story while I'm telling this functional story. It doesn't mean the small story didn't happen. It just means they're gonna paint it in a lens where you're making deeper connections with the bigger story that was going on in general. All right, so you have the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is supposed to be this God wipes these people off the planet because they are the absolute worst, the lowest of the low. They're deplorable before God, they are terrible. And then you have the same picture being painted about what was going on in Israel. So it's as if the biblical writer is trying to show you Israel had become like Sodom and Gomorrah. Israel had become the very thing that God would wipe off the map in any other scenario. And what happens? All of Israel's roused to anger, they show up and they wipe out Benjamin. Yeah, the whole place gets utterly destroyed. Very few people are left over at that point, but they kill all of them, which is like okay, this could have been avoided. Probably could have done this a little bit better. It didn't, you know what I mean? We didn't have to take this bad step and this bad step and all these things that were happening. But ultimately, this is this is the downward slide of everything that goes on. So, so to your point, you brought this up earlier, but it literally devolves into a civil war. And and the guts of this message is like, man, if you abandon what God said here, if you stop doing the things that God said here, you're gonna end up with wicked rulers, wicked families, perverted uh religion, uh, ongoing syncretism. That syncretism is gonna amplify all of the bad things that are going on, and eventually you'll have a country that will eat itself alive and destroy itself and become the very thing that is the personification of wickedness that uh everybody agreed they would never become earlier on in the story, which is so sad.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

Yeah. I mean it my dad has a saying, and he's fond of saying it. It's about compromise. And and he says, How does the world get you? The same way you eat an elephant, one bite at a time.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

One bite at a time, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

And and it's funny, I didn't plan this coming into this, but each thing we hit on, it is that slow descent into the madness we get to here.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

Yeah, yeah. If you if you read the book of Judges, I think appropriately, it's to watch from uh the beginning where they didn't do the things that they were supposed to do, and watch it get progressively worse over periods of time. Uh the rulers get worse, everything gets more shady until the end of the story. It's like the priesthood is a joke, families are a joke, now the nation is a joke, and we're literally eating each other alive. And so I think a good question to ask when you're reading through the book of Judges is how do you rewind? And I think even with our nation today, Casey, like I think a lot of people want to go back to the 1950s. And um, I love what uh Doug Wilson says about this. He's like, that's like having fourth stage cancer and wanting to go back to second stage cancer. You know, he's like the goal isn't to like go back when most of this stuff was under the surface and we just didn't see it. No, no, no, we gotta like, we gotta start over. Like, we gotta get back to the beginning, which is what did God call us to do? Quit pissing off the Lord in the way that you're living, quit abdicating and and you know, putting off and and being okay with so many shady things happening. You should be more outraged at the things that are going on, and you should be more active in the things that are happening around you, and you should stop uh stop allowing the fragmentation and syncretism and abdication and all these areas to pollute everything that's going on. And it has to start with you, and that doesn't mean looking at the judges that God picks and shooting at them. It means you changing. You deal with your own family, deal with your own community, pour into those different people and recognize that God is going to raise up and use really messy people and messy circumstances to do some messy things, and there's a lot of good that comes out of it, and I praise the Lord for those good things, but it doesn't mean that you demonize and crucify those people later if they don't do exactly the job that you wanted. No, and it it it seems like let me let me take this a step further. Okay, please, and I'll just go here real quick. Donald Trump. Yep. Okay. Is he a perfect person? Nope. No, is he a mess?

SPEAKER_01 55:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:41

Do I think he's a believer? I don't. Probably not. I think he would be hard-pressed. Dude's got like uh all kinds of weird idols and crap at his house, uh, the way that he's lived his life in the past, um, the way that he communicates and talks. Like, I don't, I don't think he is a believer. A lot of people really want to be like, no, no, no, he's definitely a Christian. Do I think he's doing some really good stuff still? Absolutely. Do I think he's also doing some really shady stuff still? Yeah. Absolutely. Am I sitting here like, I can't thank God for good things that are happening because he's a wicked person?

SPEAKER_01 56:12

Of course not.

Donkeys, Symbols, And Typology

SPEAKER_00 56:13

No. But this is also true of people like Biden or anybody else. Look, there's a way that I'm gonna vote. I'm gonna try to vote for the the lesser of two evils, if you want to say it that way. There's some big topics for me around freedom of speech, freedom of religion, uh, abortion. I'm gonna I'm gonna vote on really big topics that I think make God more angry and the things that will set us up better to continue to have a voice in the future for impact. This by no means uh means that I think Donald Trump is a great person or every or he's the second coming of Jesus Christ. It is not the case. There's so much that has been wrong, even in this presidency, which has probably been one of the cooler things to watch in my generation. Some of that spark with Charlie Kirk and his death and people coming together and sharing faith and all those things. It has also been heart wrenching to me to see how little has come out of people making those declarations with their mouth and not walking those things out in their life or legislation or other stuff that's going on. Again, yeah, it's good things happening. I praise the Lord for that. But when I look at the book of Judges, I'm like, this is that. This is that. And who do I trust? I'm trusting Jesus. Yeah. I'm gonna trust God, and I'm not just going to point at everybody else and say it was their fault, and every man does what's right in his own eyes. No, the goal is let's let's get back to what Jesus said. Let's run our families that way, let's run our communities that way, let's let's herald from our churches that way, and let's pray that God would bring redemption and hope, even through brokenness, and praise him for when he brings us judges, albeit unrighteous judges who do not always do a great job. Amen. So I hope that I hope that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

No, it does, absolutely. And uh yeah, thank you for taking us through judges and and answering those questions. I think that that was incredibly fruitful.

SPEAKER_00 57:58

Good. So I would say if anybody has um other stuff in the Bible difficulties, stories like Jephthah or or this Levite and Judges 19, and like what's going on with this, send it in. We love to hit those things and talk to you about them or at least help answer them as best we can. Uh, we won't get everything right, but we'll get as close as we can in the process. So thanks everybody for tuning in. All right. Well, thank you guys so much. Thanks, Justin. Yep, have a great week.