The Feed Mill

Today’s Bible Reading: Judges 19-21

Today’s Devotional: Judges 19:1-21

When there was no king in Israel, not only referring to no political monarch, but also refers to Israel’s refusal of God’s leadership for them and in their lives. This sets the tone for a very bad outcome.

A Levite took for himself a concubine, she then runs away and commits adultery and the Levite seeks to reconcile his relationship back with her. The woman’s father was glad to see Him come for her and showed him hospitality, and on the fifth day they made there way to Shiloh where the tabernacle was at this time. Because it was late they stopped off in Gibeah, a city of Israel, for the night instead of going into one of the pagan cities.

• Restoring his marriage – Jesus told us that divorce is never commanded if adultery happens, Matthew 19:8. If a spouse is sinned against by an act of adultery, both parties should still work to make the marriage survive and thrive, to the best of their ability and trust their hearts to the Lord to restore their trust and love for one another.

The Levite trusted the safety and security of his fellow Israelite brethren over those of a pagan town. No one showed them hospitality in Gibeah and this reflects poorly on Gibeah because God’s Word commands hospitality and love for one another among God’s people; Leviticus 19:3-34, 25:35, Matthew 25:35, Hebrews 13:2. There is something wrong when God’s people aren’t hospitable, and eventually an Ephramite does show them hospitality, but no one from the local region did so, only an Ephramite from their own region of Israel.

When hospitality and restoration are missing, there is something wrong with the heart of man, because both come from a heart of love and value for others, and both come from spending time with the one who has shown us the ultimate picture of hospitality and restoration. Who else has invited us to a life and relationship that was way beyond what we deserved and in so doing has restored us back to Himself by and through Christ Jesus. By spending time with Jesus and the Holy Spirit bringing the Love of God into our hearts as He’s abiding in and making our lives a home for Himself these are two of many characteristics that will abound in the life of a believer.

Sadly however the Levite’s actions did not continue through the night, but had its conditions, and that’s something that is different between our human capacity for Love, restoration, and capacity; because we have our limits, so does all of our affections we show towards others, but in Christ there is no limits to His character. The Greeks were people who observed and wrote about all of the character traits in others which they saw, so much so that for love they had observed five different forms of it. Four of them had there limits being ascribed to the capacity of man, but one the divine Agape love, does not. Sadly the Greeks didn’t write much about this love because they didn’t observe very much of it but the New Testament writers took the word Agape and said this is the love which is God’s Love, a divine Love with no bounds and no shortage. When Christ comes into our lives and the Holy Spirit makes His home in our hearts he brings with Him this Agape love and our capacity for love then has the potential to abound, and this comes only from spending time with Him in His Word then allowing Him to complete in us what we receive from His Word, which is confirmed by the Holy Spirit.