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More Than A Shepherd

More Than a Shepherd

What a night!  That is a night that will go down in the history books.  One my great, great, great grandchildren will still be talking about!

It all started early in the evening on this mild Bethlehem night.  Me, my name is Benjamin and I am just a shepherd, 29 years old.  A couple of hired hands and myself  watch my Father’s flock at night.  He puts me in charge as the foreman since I am his youngest son and I know his flock very well. 

Being a shepherd has its ups and downs.  It can be socially hard to be a shepherd as our career is not a desirous one.  Often times we risk our lives to save these sheep, we always smell like sheep, and to be honest, the pay isn’t that great.  But, on the other hand, as a shepherd, I can truly say I love my sheep.  They are everything to me.  Over the years, I have named every sheep my dad owns, and interesting enough, when I call them by name, they recognize my voice and follow me.

Typically, our flock will graze about a ¼ mile east of Bethlehem on a hill overlooking the village, but we have been known to wander up to 5 miles outside of the city to find enough water and feed for our flock.  Around sunset, we usually bring the head of sheep (close to a 100 in number) back to the sheepfold where we can do a final head count and safely lock them up for the night.

But on this night, I decided to allow them to roam in a field 500 yards east of my village, on a hillside.  The skies were clear, the weather was pleasant, and to be honest, I had a rough week and could use a night star gazing and relaxing.  You see, the other side of being a shepherd is, you are responsible for your sheep when they are under your care.  This week, while I was on duty, a sheep wandered off.  It was one of my favorite sheep named Whitey.  He had an unusual white coat that stood out from the other sheep.  Either way, I have spent four long days and nights looking for this guy, but to no avail.  I am very concerned for Whitey as he is alone, and probably very scared and vulnerable to predators.  I really want to find him, but I am exhausted and needed a night to recoup.   I have great help during the night hours, so I was looking forward to sitting under an olive tree contemplating life.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me tell you of Bethlehem.  Bethlehem is a small village.  There are just a few thousand of us that live in this village.  But don’t let our population size fool you about our reputation.  We have been around for several hundred years now.  Bethlehem was the city where the great King David was born.  In fact, King David was a shepherd at one time also.  One day, out of the blue, David was called in from the fields while watching his dad’s sheep to be anointed as King of Israel.   Sometimes I wonder if that field I was in last night was the same field he was allowing his sheep to graze in the day he was called to be the Shepherd King.  It’s just a thought, but I would like to think that I was sitting under the same tree he sat under when he was just a boy.   This town became quite popular because of David. 

But there is another reason it is well known.  The prophet Micah says in one of his scrolls we have in Jerusalem just a few miles north that,

“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,

who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. ^[1]

Everyone in Bethlehem knows that prophecy.  And we are constantly thinking about it.  We have been under the oppressive rule of the Babylonians for some time now and are longing for a ruler, a King to come and to set us free.  According to Micah, this King will be born in Bethlehem, just like King David was. 

That’s just a  little back ground of my hometown, now let me get to what happen last night!

At about the twelfth hour of the day (that’s about sunset), I relieved my dad from the flock and he headed home.  We were a bit farther south than I wanted to be for the night, so we headed north.  There is a hillside I particularly like as it is clear of rocks and is mostly just grass.  This makes it easier of the sheep to walk at night and therefore not risk injury to themselves (not to mention, making my work a little bit easier).  Me and the shepherds with me led the flock into this field and took up residence until sunrise where my dad would come back out and meet us.  Also, another local shepherd recently saw a lion prowling the area recently, therefore it is imperative we keep the sheep in an open field to be able to spot any predator from a distance.

The trip north took two hours.  It’s no easy task herding sheep at night and trying not to lose one of them.  Sheep tend to wander off and get lost real easily, therefore we have to always do a head count on the sheep.  Also, when you move sheep from one field to another, you can’t push them hard, you have to move at their pace, so covering ground takes a lot of time and patience.  But for a shepherd, we don’t mind, because our entire lives are about these sheep.

Well, we all finally made it to that lush hillside and I set my staff and knapsack down under an olive tree, gave my fellow shepherds some last minute instructions on a couple of sheep that had been ill recently and took to my star gazing.

The night crept on like any other night.  There was nothing special about that night.  The sky was clear, the sheep were cooperating and my shepherds were bickering with each other, everything was normal. 

It’s funny, from this hill you can see everything happening in Bethlehem.  Bethlehem was busier than usual as a recent census has pushed people back to their homelands, so all the inns were full, and there was a bit more commotion in the city than customary.

But I still remember noticing a couple walk into the city that I thought was peculiar.  They were on the highway that connected Bethlehem to Jerusalem.  What stood out to me was the lady on the donkey; even though I was a couple hundred yards away from here I could tell she was in distress.  She appeared to be pregnant, and by the way she was holding her stomach, that baby was due at any moment.

I felt kind of bad for them.  I watched as they walked to at least three inns before finding a resting place.  I guess they finally found a room, which I was glad to see.   Remember thinking to myself, “Hopefully that woman will get some rest tonight, she needs it.”

After I witnessed that scene, I went back to my duties, counting sheep, and glancing over the hill for any possible threats to the flock.

What happened next literally leaves me speechless.  Words cannot describe the scene that took place before my eyes.  As a shepherd, I am supposed to be scared of very little, as often times I have had to fight bears and lions to protect the flock, but what I saw tonight, made me pee myself (I have no other way to describe it).

Remember I said that the sky was clear.  Well something caught my eye in the distance.  It was a bright light, a light I had never seen before.  This light was too bright to be a star and was getting larger and closer by the second.  Before long, the other shepherds came over and we were all standing together, when BAM!  There it was!  I have no idea what I was looking at, but I was freaked out!  I don’t know if the sheep or anyone else saw what my workers and I saw.  The sheep didn’t move an inch, like what we were seeing wasn’t even real, but I fell to the ground and covered my face.  I was so scared.  I wasn’t scared for my life; I was shaken to the core with fear because of this being that stood, or rather, floated before me.   The magnificence of the creature enveloped all of us.  I later determined that what I saw was an angel. I will never forget his words, he said, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. ¹¹ For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger”.

But that’s not all!  As if one angel wasn’t enough!  All of a sudden, the entire sky was filled with angels!  It was an incredible multitude, so many I couldn’t count them all!  Whatever was happening in front of me at that moment was something bigger than this world has ever seen.  I doubt if anyone would even believe me when I tell them about this!  But this multitude of angels just started singing! “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Then it hit me!  It all came together.  Micah’s prophecy, the lady on the donkey with the man walking next to her earlier in the night; he is here, the King!  I am getting all jittery just writing about it.

Dude, I had to go and see what this was all about. I didn’t care that it is the middle of the night and that the family might be sleeping.  I didn’t care if we lose more sheep, they definitely can’t come with us.  I had to go see this thing for myself!  And that is what we all did; we left the sheep, our very livelihood behind for a few hours to go see this baby that is called Lord.

On the way down, we talked about how the Christ was the expected one to come and how this baby has to be it.  We talked about what we were going to see, and how magnificent it was going to be.  We didn’t fully understand why that angel told us his name was Lord, as if this baby was already a ruler.  But at least they did give us some clues as to how we would find them.  I know what part of Bethlehem they are in because I watched them walk into the city.  The angel said the baby would be in a manger; therefore they must be in an inn that has an area in which animals could be housed.  In fact I knew exactly where they were.  I lived in this city for 29 years and I knew of every manger and every inn in this city.  There was only one place they could be!  And once we figured it out we started running!  I mean straight out sprinting to this place.

We tore through Bethlehem as if we just stole a bunch of gold from Scottie the Blacksmith.  We rounded those corners, so fast that at one point I ate it, straight on my face, but I didn’t care I had to see this baby!

There it was, a small lantern burning in the door way and the ladies’ donkey tied up outside. Once we found them, we stood there speechless, outside of catching our breath.  It was just how the angel said, a baby wrapped in cloths lying in a manger. Wow.  Let me take just a minute and think about that again…

I could tell the mother and father were a little perplexed as a bunch of out of breath shepherds, one bleeding on his cheek with dirt all over his clothes, with no sheep, were in their private quarters standing with their mouth’s wide open at about midnight as they were trying to get some rest.  We definitely were invading their privacy as the mom was attempting to feed this child.  But we didn’t care.  After exchanging names real quick, we learned the name of the baby was Jesus, and the mother was Mary, and the Father, or the man, whoever he was (Mary told us something like Jesus was conceived by God himself), his name was Joseph.

We really didn’t want to be a bother, but if you had the night that we had, then you would understand.  I will say this, that young lady, Mary, who was about 16 years old, was the kindest soul you will ever meet.  There was something about her and about that family that was unique.  I mean, come on, a legion of angels came down from heaven to announce his birth.  I had to learn more.

So first thing this morning I went to Jerusalem, into the temple, and I talked to one of the Priests on duty.  I didn’t tell him what I saw; I figured he’d think I was crazy.  But in my cool, nonchalant way, I asked him if there were any prophecies made about a future king being born in Bethlehem, or maybe not a King, but someone special that we as Israelites were looking forward to meeting.  I told him I had a lot of questions about God that needed answering (Priests love it when they feel like they are doing the work of God, so I knew if I told him I had questions about God, he would spend all day trying to answer them.)

Well sure enough, this story turns even weirder!  

The Priest thought I was a shepherd by my sling in my waist line and my staff.  He inquired about my shepherding and how it was going.  He then told me about a prophecy made by Isaiah.  But he didn’t want to paraphrase it to me, so he went and dug around in the back room for the scroll.  About five minutes later he came back.  With a smirk on his face he told me he just red this prophecy about five days earlier.  He said he didn’t believe in coincidences, and that God had him read this prophecy just for my sake.  He went on and read it to me.  It said;

^‘9     Go on up to a high mountain,  O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” ¹⁰ Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him;

behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

¹¹ He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. (Isaiah 40:9-11)’”

 

Holy Smackers! I thought this baby was him!  He had to be.  That baby I saw was somehow God, and he is called a shepherd.   Imagine that, as I was standing there in front of Mary and baby Jesus, in my shepherd clothes, with my staff and my rod, I represented the very reason Jesus came to this earth; to care for and to gather his lambs into his arms.  Now I am smart enough to know he is not speaking of real lambs, but of people.  He came to this earth to care for and to love people like me and you!  Jesus was born to be someone like me, a shepherd.  I know being a shepherd is no easy task, but after years and years of tending to sheep, you really fall in love with them. 

I have about a hundred sheep I watch over and I know every single one of them by name.  In fact, I know and love them so much that if it came down to it (which it has gotten close a couple of times) I’d give my life for these beloved creatures.  They need someone like me in their life; someone to guide them, to watch over them, someone who can tend to their illnesses and their wounds and someone to lead them by still waters, and into green pastures.  My sheep need their shepherds.  And Jesus came, like a shepherd into this world.  That baby boy, who is just a few hours old, came into this world to be my shepherd and yours.

Just one person to another, if Isaiah was right, which I am guessing he is, since Micah was right about Bethlehem, Jesus, that baby I saw last night, came to this earth for one purpose.  That purpose was you.  I got to see him face to face and even as a baby, there was a sense of peace about that child.  What a precious scene, that baby lying in a manger.  But he came for you.  He wants to lead you and guide you.  And I guarantee it, when Jesus grows up, he is going to do something absolutely marvelous, something this world has never seen before.  And I bet you, whatever it is, it’s going to be so he can love you even more.

But for today, for tonight, as I finish telling you about what I saw, let me say this.  You will go back to your lives.  Some of you will forget what I said tonight.  For me, it will always impact me, I will never forget that night.  I hope that I could get you to see it through my eyes, because that baby changed my life!  I know you will go back to doing what you do, but I plead with you, do not let this story slip by as a fable or a myth, but as reality.  I was an eye witness.  I saw it!  And I am telling you, Jesus came to this world for you, as a shepherd to carry you, and to love you.  I know what it’s like to be a shepherd, and I know that my sheep are often tired and worn out.

To wrap up, I have one more small miracle to tell you about.  As I was walking back from Jerusalem, I saw my father in the distance.  He was coming down from the hillside leaving his flock and walking towards me.  As my dad got closer, I could tell there was a sheep wrapped around his neck, one he was carrying.  As we drew nearer, I could tell it was Whitey!  My father came up to me and told me he had been searching for Whitey too and found him caught in a bush on the outskirts of town.  Besides some wool missing, Whitey was ok, but he would need some tender care for the night.  My father handed me the sheep and hugged me goodnight.  As I looked at Whitey, with my eyes tearing up, I saw myself in him, safe and secure, back in his shepherd’s arms.

People call me nuts sometimes when I tell them my story.  But that’s ok with me.

Luke 2:9-21

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. ¹⁰ And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. ¹¹ For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” ¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

¹⁴    “Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

¹⁵ When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. ¹⁷ And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. ¹⁸ And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. ²⁰ And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

²¹ And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. ^[2]

 

 

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^[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Mic 5:2). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

^[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Lk 2:9–21). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

Wrecked

Have you ever meant to help someone out before and yet caused their situation to be worse?  Maybe someone uttered the phrase, “Hey, just stop, you are doing more harm than good here”, recently to you.  If so, you know how embarrassing it can be to intend to do someone good, but in return, make their situation even harder on them than before.

Picture this scene I witnessed a few years ago that is a perfect example of this.  I was standing in a Burger King parking lot talking with some friends alongside of a busy five lane highway.  This Burger King was located about a tenth of a mile north of a busy intersection.  If one wanted to pull out of the restaurant and head north on the highway, they would have had to dart across three lanes of traffic in order to do so.  Most people would head to the light to safely make it out.  But on this particular day, one young lady in her blue Corolla, took the chance that most wouldn’t.  She pulled up to the highway with her left blinker on, frantically looking both ways, hoping to find her break in traffic in order to cross the three heavily traveled south bound lanes in order to head north.  After sitting there for about 20 seconds, the light to her south turned red and the lane closest to her backed up.  But one gentleman in this lane chose to be kind and allowed space for the young lady to pull out.  As I watched this unfold before my eyes, I knew this wasn’t going to turn out well.  The man in the car was clearly enamored at this young lady’s looks as he gazed at her while not considering the traffic around him.  In his kindness, without checking the second or third lane next to him, he smiled at the blonde hair woman and waved her out.  The woman could not see beyond this man’s car and therefore was taking the man’s word that he had checked traffic for her (which I could see from my view point that he didn’t) and all was clear for her to pull out.  I think you can imagine what happened next.  This young lady, by the helpful hand of this gentleman, in a desperate move to make it safely across these lanes, blindly floored it.  The chirp of her tires slipping as her engines revved up, told those around that she was reacting to this man’s gesture and did not feel completely safe about entering into traffic yet.  The tragedy of the scene (which definitely made me chuckle for a second) was that she floored it straight into oncoming traffic as she was t-boned by a car doing about 45 mph in the lane next to this man who waved her out.

Out of sheer embarrassment, the guilty man ducked his head and took off, leaving this young lady with a wreck to clean up.

What an example of doing more harm than good.

Have you ever given thought to this concept and how it plays out in your Christian liberty?  You have learned, over the years, that God has set you free from the law and that in his grace you are free to enjoy a relationship with God that includes enjoying certain pleasures in this world.  Yet, while enjoying those pleasures, you may be doing harm to your brother or sister.  In fact, you may even encourage your brother or sister in Christ to loosen up a bit and walk more in grace than in law.  Yet, in your efforts to lead them in the knowledge that you have of the gospel, you may end up doing more harm than good.  Take a look at how this plays to in 1 Corinthians 8:10-13,

“For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? ¹¹ And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. ¹² Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. ¹³ Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.”

This individual, who was eating food in an idol’s temple, was waving his weaker brother out into oncoming traffic.  He did not realize that his brother who was witnessing him eating in an idol’s temple (which Paul indicates that this act of eating in an idol’s temple, in and of itself is not wrong) was being led astray and this was causing more harm than good for him.   Paul, at the end of this section, makes a startling commitment to become a vegetarian if that’s what it takes to ensure he never leads his brother astray.

Are you willing to say “never” to the things you enjoy for the sake of loving your brother or sister?  God is not as concerned about strengthening those who struggle in their faith, as he is with those who are more mature in their faith stooping down to the level of their brothers and sisters who are struggling. 

This is the example Christ gave us, by stooping down to our level, and dying for us.  We should be more concerned about what actions we may do that would stir doubt inside of a fellow Christian’s heart, than indulging temporarily in our Christian freedom.  For example, drinking alcohol in the presence of some may destroy their faith instead of build them up.  Or, the kind gesture of paying for a friend to see a PG-13 movie, and yet this friend is condemned in his conscience while he watches it.

Our ambition should be to know our Christian family so well that their weakness becomes ours.  This makes knowing how to handle yourself in their presence much easier.

But hat’s off to you for having a heart of kindness to begin with.  Just like that man who kindly waved the young lady out into traffic; who gave up a moment of his day and a portion of the road that belonged to him to show kindness to his neighbor, you genuinely want to love and care for others.   I guess it would behoove us to look over our shoulder and see if there is oncoming traffic that may take us or our beneficiary by surprise and possibly destroy them.

Thankful Prayers

I beat the afternoon rush to Taco Bell a few weeks ago.  My stomach was talking more than normal that morning, so I set my work down a little earlier than scheduled, and went out to order a meal deal #4 and enjoy a few minutes to  myself.  Sure enough, there was no one there.  It didn’t take long to order my meal.  Once I finished ordering, I sat down and laid my meal out in front of me.  Then, like a well oiled machine going through some pre -programmed motions, I closed my eyes and shot out a prayer of thanks. 

I was taught growing up to thank God before every meal.  I never asked why I should pray before a meal, I just did it.  But, if I can be honest with you and if you promise not to judge me, I always felt a little weird about praying in a restaurant before my meal.  I always thought, “What will people think?”

I discreetly thanked God for my Taco Bell meal and began eating.  While I ate, I watched the kitchen staff from my booth work hard at their job preparing for the lunch rush. 

Moments later a man walked through the door that caught my attention. 

He was a simple man, a city worker coming in off the field for his lunch break.  The man appeared to be in his mid 50’s as his hair and gruff on his face had a dash of grey in it.  His skin was rough and pre maturely wrinkled, clueing me in on his possible position as either being on the public works or parks and recreation division for the city.

His grey work issued polo was worn out, but it was evident that the man still found pride in his uniform as he tucked his polo into his blue jean shorts, and used a brown leather belt to ensure his shirt would remain in place throughout the work day.

His feet were fitted with a pair of old red wing boots complimented with a pair of crew high socks that were folded down neatly, telling me the man was somewhat concerned about his fashion, but not enough to care about what anyone else thought.

With nothing else to look at, I watched this man order his food and then sit down at a booth across from me. 

I liked this man.  There was a sense of tranquility about him as he went about his meal preparation that was refreshing to my hectic day.  Underneath his arm was the daily sports page from the local paper he had brought with him.  After setting the paper on the table, he began his routine, preparing for his lunch.  He unfolded his napkin and laid it across his lap, moved his fork to the right of his tray, and strategically located his cup to the 1 o’clock position in front of him. 

But what he did next was what really stood out to me.  After his meal was setup, this city worker then folded his hands, placed them on his lap, where his napkin was resting, slightly bowed his head, and closed his eyes.  For the next 20 seconds or so, the man’s lip’s ever so slightly moved, as he was clearly thanking God for the meal that was in front of him.

And then, just like that, he opened his eyes, and began eating, as he read the front page of the newspaper that he brought with him.

I pondered that scene for the rest of my lunch.  That man had a unique relationship with God, which was incredible to witness.  His prayer and my prayer were radically different.  Let me show you.

Count to five.  Go ahead and do it.  My prayer was, at best was that long.  I was eager to eat, yet in my mind, I was supposed to pray before I ate, therefore not really giving thanks, but rather climbing through some religious obstacle in order to get to my meal. 

Now count to twenty, go ahead, I’ll wait.  I’m not going anywhere…

This was about the length of time this man prayed to God, giving him thanks for his meal.  Let me ask you something.  Who showed more thanksgiving, more honor, more value in the one who provided the meal? 

God, can definitely be pleased with a five second prayer, but my heart was focused on getting the prayer out of the way so I could get to the “good stuff”.

I have a hunch that this seasoned man did not see his moment of thanksgiving as an imposition to him, but an opportunity to give honor to God.  His meal could wait.  His meal could get cold, but his prayer could not wait, and would not be rushed through as he acknowledge God’s love and goodness to him through the simple act of providing his Taco Bell meal.

Why do we give thanks to God?  Because in so doing we honor God.  Romans 14:6 says, “The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.” 

Thanksgiving is giving honor to God for what he has given you. 

The next time you bow your head to thank God for a meal, or anything else, understand that the purpose of what you are doing is to honor God for a brief moment before you indulge into his blessings.

The Heart of Jephthah Continued

With a bit more understanding of Jephthah behind us (see previous blog), we can now move forward and tackle some of the theological questions that plague us as we attempt to swallow this unbelievable story.

The broad question that I want to answer is, “what is the purpose of this story in the canon of Scripture?” 

On the surface, this slice of history seems to cause more questions than it answers. So let’s unpack some of the peripheral questions first in order to make headway to the foundational question at hand.

Did God accept Jephthah’s vow and sacrifice?  No.  If we look later into Israel’s history we see a young wise king by the name of Josiah trying to turn Israel back to God.  In his attempts to reform Israel, we read in 2 Kings 23:10 that he defiles Topheth.  Topheth was right outside of Jerusalem and had an altar that was used to offer sacrifices to the false god called Molech (which we talked about last time).  2 Kings says he defiled this altar “so that no one might burn their son or daughter as an offering to Molech”.  Somehow, possibly by the hand of Jephthah, this altar was erected and used for such sacrifices in the land of Israel.  The reason Josiah would have defiled the altar, making it unusable for any sacrifice, would have been because he knew that God would not have accepted these sacrifices; not by Jephthah, and not by anyone else in the land of Israel. 

Listen to Jeremiah’s words as he is the mouth piece of God to the Israelites, “They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin. (Jeremiah 32:35)”.

It is clear that Jephthah’s act of sacrificing his daughter was an abomination in God’s sight. 

 

But, one may argue that Jephthah made a vow and he should have kept it, especially since God did deliver the Ammonites into his hand.

I want you to note two things about this.  The first is, God planned to use Jephthah to defeat the Ammonites regardless of Jephthah’s vow.  Judges 11:29 says that the Spirit of God came upon Jephthah.  This happened before Jephthah ever made his vow.  We see another incident of the Spirit of God coming on a Judge, and when He did come upon him, that Judge defeated the enemies of Israel (Judges 3:10).  God was already moving in Jephthah to defeat the Ammonites, and thus his vow was irrational and impulsive.

Secondly, according to God, a man was not held to his word if the vow he made to God was sinful.  Leviticus 5:4-5 says, “or if anyone utters with his lips a rash oath to do evil or to do good, any sort of rash oath that people swear, and it is hidden from him, when he comes to know it, and he realizes his guilt in any of these; ⁵ when he realizes his guilt in any of these and confesses the sin he has committed…”

Jephthah truly believed that his oath was honoring to God and that is why he fulfilled it.  But if Jephthah came to the knowledge that his oath was sinful, he was required by God to turn from it and confess his sin to God.  He was not held captive by his words, rather he was led astray by ignorance of the law of God.

The moment Jephthah saw his daughter and was torn by the oath he made to God, he should have confessed his sin to God and made atonement for it through an animal sacrifice and a contrite heart and he would have saved his daughter’s life.

Jephthah’s downfall was that he had a weak knowledge of the Word of God, and allowed the practices of the world to infiltrate his worship to God.  It serves us as a reminder, especially in a world where evil is becoming more rampant and tolerated, that the Word of God acts as our guide in how to worship God, to direct us through the confusion of a world drifting farther and farther away from God.

 

But, this story is not all doom and gloom.  There has to be a specific reason this story is found in the Word of God.  And that reason applies to us today.  This story reveals to us the overwhelming love of our Father in Heaven.  For it is on the backdrop of sin that God’s grace and mercy become more real to us.  What I am about to show you may surprise you, as it did it me.

 

I was reading through the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11 the other day and guess whose name was in it?  No, not mine (mine is in the Book of Life!), that’s right, Jephthah’s!

 

Hebrews 11:32-33 “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— ³³ who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,”

 

What?  I almost screamed “are you kidding me!” when I read it.  But that’s right, by faith Jephthah led Israel, and he defeated the Ammonites. And later in Hebrews, it says, he was commended for his faith.  Commendation literally means to be spoken well of by God.  This mean Jephthah was spoken well of by God because of his faith, not because of what he did do or didn’t do, but because he had faith in God.  Jephthah did a terrible thing, but yet God accepted him as righteous because of his faith.

Incredible!  I need a breather for a minute as I am still processing this. 

Is there any sin that is too heinous that God would not forgive?  If there is, I would imagine it would be killing your own daughter.  But God says no.  Rather, one is justified by faith alone and not by what he or she does. 

What Jephthah did was absolutely horrible, but his sinful act was not beyond the reach of the grace of God.  Jephthah found favor in God’s eyes because of his faith (Hebrews 11:6) and God was pleased with him because of that.

Jephthah is a picture of God’s unfathomable mercy on a fallen person.  God’s love is so deep and so wide, that we can’t even begin to fathom it.  I believe Jephthah is in the Bible to remind us of the greatness of God’s love and mercy that can cover a multitude of sins.

You may feel as if you have done something so terrible in your life that God cannot forgive you. It may seem to you that your faith has been fatally wounded by a sin that is so atrocious, that no one in this world will ever accept you.

Let me encourage you to let the story of Jephthah serve as a reminder of God’s mercy and forgiveness.  You are declared righteous because of your faith in Jesus Christ, not because of what you have done or how good you can be.  You can boldly approach God and take hold of forgiveness and that will set you free from the bondage of the guilt that has followed you through life.

On the other hand, there is only one incident of a child sacrifice that was acceptable to God the Father, and that was Him sending his beloved Son to die as a sacrifice for you on the cross.  His love for you caused him to do what Jephthah should have never done, but was acceptable for God to do. That is because his Son, Jesus, is the perfect Lamb of God who was and is able to atone for your sins.

I have labored to bring you the best answers I could find about the confusion surrounding Judges 11. Regardless if my interpretation of Jephthah is completely accurate in it’s details, this story is a beautiful picture of God’s faithfulness to those who are his children.  If sacrificing your own daughter isn’t enough to thwart God’s love for you, then what is? 

The Heart of Jephthah

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         “Hey God”, Jephthah’s petitioned began, “I really need your help right now.  Israel has asked me to lead them against the Ammonites, and I don’t think I can do this on my own.  I’d like to strike a deal with you.  If you give me victory over the Ammonites, I will give you the first thing that comes out to meet me when I arrive home as a burnt sacrifice.”  There is no recorded response from God in Judges 11.  Rather the narrative plays out and Jephthah does defeat the Ammonites as the Spirit of God was upon him.  Like any soldier coming off the battlefield, he is eager to head home to see his family, fully aware of the vow he made to God. 

 

One can only imagine the blissful scene that quickly turned to anguish as Jephthah arrives home and meets his daughter. I picture Jephthah’s daughter playing with some of the servant’s children in the entry way of his home as she did every day, hoping for her dad to come home safely from war. Finally, to her delight, she notices a group of men on horseback heading her way.  There is only one person it could be, her dad!  As the battalion of men grows closer, his daughter recognizes the man in the front, and runs outside to give her dad a huge hug and welcome him home.  As Jephthah draws nearer to his house, he sees his daughter running towards him with a smile that stretches from ear to ear.  Her excitement cannot be contained, not even by her dad’s dreadful words.

 

“Daughter!  You have made me very sad!  I have made a vow to God that I cannot take back.” Jephthah says with a torn heart. “Father, I am just glad you are home, but you need to keep your vow to God, do to me as you vowed.”  The narrative leaves us befuddled as it says ,”he does with her as he vowed” then goes dark moments later leaving us horrified at what appears to take place.  (You can read the entire passage in Judges 11:29-40).

 

There are so many questions that rattle us when we read this account in Judges.  Did Jephthah actually sacrifice his daughter?  Did God accept the sacrifice?  How could this happen?  Why would Jephthah make such a foolish vow, wouldn’t he had known that it would have been a human that would have come out and met him, let alone possibly his daughter?  Why did he even gamble with a vow like this knowing he had a daughter?

 

Buried in this story is a legion of lessons for the modern reader.  But to get to those lessons we have to begin peeling back the layers of the story to understand what is really going on here.  Let’s start by asking the question, why did Jephthah make a vow like this?

 

To begin, let’s look at the book of Judges as a whole.  Judges is rightly named as Israel resides in the long awaited Promise Land and is governed by officials called Judges.  A Judge was typically a military leader who helped Israel conquer their enemies.  The victory would boost this leader to a prominent political status, yet not quite to the status of a King. 

 

Lacking a physical King, Israel takes up residence and settles down in this land flowing with milk and honey.  Their nation is governed by a theocracy (where God is the King and the Law giver).  As time passes in this Promise Land, Israel begins to drift away from God through the worship of false gods of the nations around them. 

 

With each turn of the Biblical page, comes further deprivation on Israel’s part.  The end of the book of Judges makes a startling revelation of the people of God; “everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes.”  Israel had walked away from the law of God and each individual had established a code of ethics based upon each one’s own desire.

 

Jephthah was no exception as he made and fulfilled a vow that was right in his own eyes, yet it would have been an abomination in the eyes of God.  But To fully understand what led Jephthah to make such a foolish vow, we need to understand his history.

 

Jephthah had a rough childhood.  He was the only child in his home that was the child of a prostitute.  His brothers picked on him because of this and eventually drove him out of the home.

 

Jephthah fled to a land called Tob.  We don’t know much about this land except that is was located 13 miles south east of the Galilean Sea on the northern border of the Ammonite territory. ^[1]  Living in such close proximity to the Ammonite territory, Tob would have been influenced by the practices of the Ammonites.  This could be one of the reasons Jephthah was summoned back to Israel to lead them in a military campaign against the Ammonites, as he would have been familiar with their land, practices, and pagan worship.

 

One of the gods of the Ammonites was a god called Molech.  Scripture reveals to us a little about the religious practices of this false god.

 

2 Kings 23:10 says, “And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to Molech.”

 

It was a religious practice for the Ammonites to offer their children as burnt sacrifices to this god.  I could just imagine how desperate a parent would have to be to appease this false god by killing their own child.

 

As I dig into Judges 11 a bit more I see a man who is desperate to rebuild his reputation among his brothers and desperate to do so by defeating the Ammonites.  After being exiled by his family, he is called back to lead his brothers in war against the Ammonites. It appears (in my opinion) that he becomes anxious not to fail them, possibly to be accepted back into the family he was once shunned by.  In so doing, he makes an irrational vow to God that was motivated from his religious affiliation during his time in Tob by becoming acquainted with the practices of Molech. 

 

Jephthah was a man who knew Yahweh, Israel’s God (as is evident in the fact that Judges 11 says, “The Spirit of God came upon him), but because of his time in a foreign land, he did not know how to worship or commune with the One true God.  So Jephthah resorted to what he was familiar with, the religious practices of the pagans that he was surrounded with while in Tob (Judges 11 also points out that worthless men followed him to Tob and lived with him there. This indicates that Jephthah or these men lacked a knowledge of the Law of God as Israel would have been governed by.)

 

In analyzing Jephthah’s vow, we see hints that he planned to sacrifice a human as his burnt offering.  Here is why I believe this.

 

Judges 11:30-31 says, “And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, ‘If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out of from my doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the Lord’s and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.’” (Italics added). 

 

One reason I believe Jephthah planned to sacrifice a human in this vow are the words whatever and it.  These words can also be translated from the Hebrew as whoever and he, as it is somewhat ambiguous in the Hebrew translation.  If this is the case, then Jephthah would have determined to offer a human as a sacrifice all along.

 

A second reason I believe this is because of the phrase “to meet me”.  This phrase indicates that whatever Jephthah had in mind was a creature or human that had the intent of coming out for the specific purpose of meeting Jephthah and welcoming him back.

 

My premise is that Jephthah was hoping for a child of a servant to come out to meet him.  Regardless if sacrificing a human was his intent or not, he made a foolish open ended vow that included the option of burning a human life.  We see his true intent when his daughter runs out to meet him and his heart is grieved as he sees her as the object of his upcoming sacrifice.

 

Some believe he never sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering but rather committed her to the Lord as a virgin the rest of her life.  If we read this story at face value, we are led to believe that he does offer her as a burnt offering as verse 39 says “…who did with her according to his vow that he had made.”

 

Every time I read Judges 11, I am forced to pause and ponder why God would allow something like this to take place inside of his chosen nation?  He clearly could have put a stop to it by sending a prophet to Jephthah to correct his reckless behavior and thwart his plan to sacrifice his daughter.  But since God doesn’t, I must assume that this story has purpose in the overall plan of the redeeming power of the Gospel.

 

Jephthah is a picture of the state of Israel during his time.  Being located in the middle of the book of Judges, it represents a nation who has amalgamated faith in Yahweh with the religious practices of the nations around them. 

 

In Jephthah’s vow, Jephthah has blended the worship of Yahweh with the religious practices of the god of the Ammonites, Molech.  This picture shows the reader of Judges the state Israel was in.  They were still God’s people, yet their worship of God was polluted with the worship of false gods around them.

 

My conclusion is, Jephthah made a pagan vow to the Holy God.

 

This still leaves us with a slew of unanswered questions.  Did God accept his vow?  What should have Jephthah done the moment he realized his sin?  Was there a way out for him?  What can we learn from his foolishness?  These are all questions I will address next time as we see how we have a merciful God who longs for something much greater than sacrifice and burnt offerings. 

 

My belief is that Jephthah did sacrifice his daughter as a burnt offering as he vowed to.  This was not God’s desire for Jephthah, but God still found favor in Jephthah faith. 

 

Read on next time to see the hope we have in a merciful God who looks beyond our foolishness to grant us grace and mercy.

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^[1] Easton, M. G. (1893). Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers.