Today's NEW LESSON ...

We just studied a murder. Of a young lady, either raped to death or left abandoned due to her injuries or outright killed by her husband who was a Levite. Judges chapter 19 tells the story.

Once the Levite's concubine, her body, was brought home. Then, in perfect accordance with those days of anarchy and apostasy, the Levite did something unthinkable to his lover. And something "unthinkable" in the Book of Judges would by now be truly astounding!

Here's what the narrator, the writer of judges tells us: "And when he (the woman's husband, the Levite) was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel. And it was so, that all that saw it said, There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day: consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds." Judges 19:29-30

The man cut the dead body into twelve pieces!

He then posted a piece of her to each of the twelve divisions of Israel, to each of their tribes.

As we shall learn tomorrow, he did this apparently to provoke the Nation to war! To attack the city, Gibeah, that was harboring the perverted murderers of the girl. Better said, to punish the men who raped her repeatedly, all night long, her last night on earth.

In today's Lesson I simply want to emphasize, or at least notice, how low moral and cultural and social life had fallen.

Human life now means virtually nothing.

No respect at all is here shown to a dead body.

Mutilate it.

That's what always happens to our treatment of each other ... when we forget God. When other men and women become only to us "animals" who have evolved from some lower life form!

When the community of humanity no longer considers each other "created" in the Image of Almighty God!

Just results of fate, luck, a roll of the dice.

Truth be told, all the way through the dark Book of Judges women are basically mistreated. Ignored, used, belittled, killed ... made subservient to the wishes of someone in power.

And this event caps them all.

What's the answer to this dilemma?

Here's one. Wait 'til Jesus comes! He, our precious Saviour, elevates womanhood as no one before had ever done. He shares with Moms and Sisters and Grandmothers and friends time and consideration and kindness and power and best of all, eternal life!

Let's all respect one another. Especially as Christians. The New Testament gives us well over a dozen commands about how we should treat "one another." And Paul is replete with such information and encouragement too.

Let's not cut our brother or sister to pieces. "But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." Paul in Galatians 5:15, reflecting the condition in some of the Churches of his day.

Let's love and honor them, fellow children of the Lord.

                    --- Dr. Mike Bagwell

These Lessons on Judges can be read collectively by visiting HERE on the Website. God's Word is truly a wonderful Book!

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