By John Stallings
…they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. Romans 10:2
A four year old boy was awakened one night by the sound of heavy thunder & lightening. He went into the bedroom where his parents were sleeping & woke up his mother.
The sleepy mother was trying her best to get her son to go back to bed. “Son you need to go to your room. The storm will soon pass.” The boy noticed his father in the bed next to his mom & said, “But mom, I want to stay here with you & daddy. I’m scared.”
The mother said, “Son, your daddy is in the bed with me & he’s sleeping.” To which to small boy replied, “Yeah, that big sissy.”
The child wanted to run the show that stormy night which isn’t that unusual for the immature.
A quick glance through the book of Judges witnessing the depth of human weakness & sin leaves us asking, “Who’s running the show here?” Frankly everyone was running their own show. We’re told— “there was no king in Israel & every man did what was right in his own eyes.”
LOOK BACK AT HURRICANE KATRINA
Do you remember New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina? It seemed that everyone did as he/she saw fit. Even with the perspective of history, we still find it hard to know if the tragedy was a failure of local, state or national leadership. In some respects it was a failure of individuals who didn’t “get out of Dodge” when they could have. The bottom line is, there was plenty of blame to go around. In retrospect, Katrina is still seen from many different perspectives. There are many “Katrina stories” & “Katrina theories.”
Well, the history of Israel as recorded in the book of Judges was much like Katrina & other earth shattering tragedies. It was a dark day of unbridled passions & the children of Israel lived like no one was in charge—certainly not the Lord.
JEPHTHAH
According to Judges Chapter’s 11& 12, Jephthah judged Israel for 6 years. He was born of a harlot & was rejected by his father’s other children. Jephthah was ostracized from the family because they felt he shouldn’t have an inheritance due to the circumstances of his birth.
Many who’re reading this will know from first hand experience that to a great degree, if you can survive your family you can survive anything. I heard someone say that friends are people God gives us to apologize for our families. It’s sort of humorous but it seems to be consistently true that our families are a proving ground for us. Jephthah’s experience with his family is no exception.
When the Ammonites made war on Israel, Jephthah’s brethren, knowing they lacked a leader who could successfully lead them against their enemy, took a chance on asking Jephthah to return & consider the job.
Jephthah still had many wounds from the rejection of his kin & let them know about it when they came seeking his help. He agreed to help lead Israel into battle if they’d make him their true leader after victory was won. The leaders of Israel agreed so Jephthah returned with them to be their new commander.
Highlighting his leadership skills, Jephthah first tried to talk to the leader of the Ammonites & avoid a war. When it became clear it wasn’t going to happen, war was waged. In Judges 11:29-33 we find the report of great victory over the Ammonites & twenty of their cities. The power came from God & He stood by the Israelites as Jephthah led them. As a matter of fact we’re told “the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah” & he was granted a marvelous victory over the enemy.
JEPHTHAH’S BIG MISTAKE!!
I’m taking nothing away from Jephthah’s faith & trust in God, but in his euphoria he did something extremely rash & unwise. He made a vow to the Lord that if victory was his over these enemies, he would offer as a sacrifice to God whatever came out of the doors of his house to meet him when he arrived home.
This was a public acknowledgement that he realized he couldn’t win the victory without the Lord’s help. Then we’re told the tragic outcome of this vow. Jephthah expected maybe a dog or a goat would be the first to run out to meet him upon his arrival home, but his eager young daughter was watching for him and she came out first.
I don’t know with absolute certainty what really happened then. Bible scholars are split on it; some thinking he didn’t actually kill his daughter but simply put her away in a convent-like setting where she never married. But the text leads in another direction & suggests a darker outcome. If you read the narrative it looks like Jephthah carried out his vow & offered his daughter as a sacrifice, after a two month period which she requested.
JEPTHAH HAD A BURNING FAITH AND ZEAL, BUT ZEAL WITH NO WISDOM WILL ALWAYS GO WRONG
Jepthah evidently had enough faith to get his name in Hebrews 11 but his knowledge of God came up short. All we can say is that the times of the Judges were a dark page in Israel’s history & it would only get worse as the book ends.
Jepthah’s misguided & ignorant actions were completely unnecessary & totally wrong. The Canaanites could do things like that but God never permitted His people to sacrifice human beings as offerings to Him. Yes, it’s wise to keep our vows to God but Jepthah’s vow was made in ignorance of who God really is & what He requires.
While we should be aflame with love for the Lord, there is a zeal that’s destructive, divisive & deadly. It divides homes, nations & churches. This misguided zeal many times will find a good teaching or principle & drive it to an extreme making a bad thing out of a good thing. The cause of Christ has been deeply hurt by extremists with misguided zeal. Some good causes have been lost because the people propagating them got a fighting spirit & veered off track.
HERE’S AN EXAMPLE OF A ZEALOT
Jesus took Peter, James & John to the garden of Gethsemane & asked them to watch & pray. As Jesus prayed, the soldiers came to take Him away. Peter awoke, saw what was happening, pulled out his sword & cut off the ear of Malchus. Jesus rebuked Peter & put the ear back on; He healed him supernaturally & miraculously. Now you talk about zeal!! Peter was full of zeal!—misguided zeal. What did Peter do wrong?
PETER HAD THE WRONG ENEMY!
Malchus was a slave & servant of the high priest. Many times zealots fight the wrong enemy. We wrestle not against flesh & blood. Never let the devil tempt you to put on the boxing gloves with another Christian. There are far too many circular firing squads in families & in the church today.
PETER HAD THE WRONG WEAPON
2 Corinthians 10:4 says—For the weapons of our warfare a re not carnal but mighty through God…
However, Peter was using the right weapon on the Day of Pentecost when he took the two-edged sword of God’s Word & saw three-thousand people swept into the kingdom of God.
PETER HAD THE WRONG STRENGHT
James said,--For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.—James 1:20
I’m so glad Jesus healed Malcus. What kind of testimony would it have been for Jesus, for a hot-headed Christian to cut a man’s ear off? Only when we’re controlled by the Spirit can we bring Glory to God & His work.
WOULD GOOD THEOLOGY HAVE KEPT JEPTHAH’S UGLY ACTION FROM TAKING PLACE?
Most assuredly it would have. The Ten Commandments forbade murder while Leviticus 27 & Deuteronomy 18 disallows the offering of human sacrifice.
Also, all Jepthah had to do was talk to God & following through with his vow wouldn’t have been required. But he didn’t have the working knowledge to understand that fact. Acts 17:30 says;
And at the times of this ignorance God winked, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.
The fact that Jephthah received honorable mention as a man of great faith in Hebrews 11 shows us that God in some cases has overlooked ignorance, but He never overlooks unbelief.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism was a man of many letters & a great orator. Once in a huge open air meeting a man yelled out, “John Wesley, God doesn’t need your education.” To which Wesley replied, “No, and He doesn’t need your ignorance either.”
The prophet Hosea wrote;
My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
In Luke 7:28 Jesus said…..among those that are born of woman there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist: but he that is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he.
How could the least of the Kingdom be greater than John Baptist? John lived before Christ died on the cross. Once Jesus died, there was a spirit of revelation released & even a five year old now could understand more about God’s ultimate intention than any of the patriarchs. To put it bluntly, Jephthah & those who existed during his lifetime get some wiggle room because of the dark days they lived in. However, you & I live in the blazing noon-day of prophetic knowledge.
Here’s a little food for thought; both Simon Peter & Judas acted in such a way as to be called “hitting bottom” spiritually. Peter hit bottom by denying any knowledge of Christ, & Judas hit bottom by actually selling Jesus out for money.
To me, the basic reason the two men reacted to their failures differently was that somehow Peter was able to grab hold of what the cross meant & Judas never saw it. Peter lived to fight another day but Judas committed suicide.
What the two men did was equally despicable. Of course Judas sold Jesus out for money, but we shouldn’t forget, he took the money back & threw it at the feet of the people he got it from.
WHAT IS THEOLOGY?
The very mention of the word theology makes some people’s eyes roll back in their heads & scares the living daylights out of them. Their eyes glaze over & they envision old white-haired men speaking in polysyllables. They conjure up lists of genealogies & categories & dry barren wastelands without a drop of water.
Simply put, theology is –the study of God. This might surprise you, but I’m a theologian. What may surprise you more is that you’re a theologian too. Does that surprise you? Why do I call you a theologian? Look at it this way. If someone were to ask you about the origin of the earth, the creation of man, the prophecies about Christ’s coming, His ultimate death on the cross & His resurrection, what would you do?
I feel certain you’d proceed to the best of your abilities to explain it all to them, would you not? That’s what a theologian does. Everyone who reads the Bible has built up some sort of theology. If a person never goes to church or reads the Bible they’ll still have a set of ideas about the way the world works & some working thoughts & attitudes about God.
…they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. Romans 10:2
A four year old boy was awakened one night by the sound of heavy thunder & lightening. He went into the bedroom where his parents were sleeping & woke up his mother.
The sleepy mother was trying her best to get her son to go back to bed. “Son you need to go to your room. The storm will soon pass.” The boy noticed his father in the bed next to his mom & said, “But mom, I want to stay here with you & daddy. I’m scared.”
The mother said, “Son, your daddy is in the bed with me & he’s sleeping.” To which to small boy replied, “Yeah, that big sissy.”
The child wanted to run the show that stormy night which isn’t that unusual for the immature.
A quick glance through the book of Judges witnessing the depth of human weakness & sin leaves us asking, “Who’s running the show here?” Frankly everyone was running their own show. We’re told— “there was no king in Israel & every man did what was right in his own eyes.”
LOOK BACK AT HURRICANE KATRINA
Do you remember New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina? It seemed that everyone did as he/she saw fit. Even with the perspective of history, we still find it hard to know if the tragedy was a failure of local, state or national leadership. In some respects it was a failure of individuals who didn’t “get out of Dodge” when they could have. The bottom line is, there was plenty of blame to go around. In retrospect, Katrina is still seen from many different perspectives. There are many “Katrina stories” & “Katrina theories.”
Well, the history of Israel as recorded in the book of Judges was much like Katrina & other earth shattering tragedies. It was a dark day of unbridled passions & the children of Israel lived like no one was in charge—certainly not the Lord.
JEPHTHAH
According to Judges Chapter’s 11& 12, Jephthah judged Israel for 6 years. He was born of a harlot & was rejected by his father’s other children. Jephthah was ostracized from the family because they felt he shouldn’t have an inheritance due to the circumstances of his birth.
Many who’re reading this will know from first hand experience that to a great degree, if you can survive your family you can survive anything. I heard someone say that friends are people God gives us to apologize for our families. It’s sort of humorous but it seems to be consistently true that our families are a proving ground for us. Jephthah’s experience with his family is no exception.
When the Ammonites made war on Israel, Jephthah’s brethren, knowing they lacked a leader who could successfully lead them against their enemy, took a chance on asking Jephthah to return & consider the job.
Jephthah still had many wounds from the rejection of his kin & let them know about it when they came seeking his help. He agreed to help lead Israel into battle if they’d make him their true leader after victory was won. The leaders of Israel agreed so Jephthah returned with them to be their new commander.
Highlighting his leadership skills, Jephthah first tried to talk to the leader of the Ammonites & avoid a war. When it became clear it wasn’t going to happen, war was waged. In Judges 11:29-33 we find the report of great victory over the Ammonites & twenty of their cities. The power came from God & He stood by the Israelites as Jephthah led them. As a matter of fact we’re told “the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah” & he was granted a marvelous victory over the enemy.
JEPHTHAH’S BIG MISTAKE!!
I’m taking nothing away from Jephthah’s faith & trust in God, but in his euphoria he did something extremely rash & unwise. He made a vow to the Lord that if victory was his over these enemies, he would offer as a sacrifice to God whatever came out of the doors of his house to meet him when he arrived home.
This was a public acknowledgement that he realized he couldn’t win the victory without the Lord’s help. Then we’re told the tragic outcome of this vow. Jephthah expected maybe a dog or a goat would be the first to run out to meet him upon his arrival home, but his eager young daughter was watching for him and she came out first.
I don’t know with absolute certainty what really happened then. Bible scholars are split on it; some thinking he didn’t actually kill his daughter but simply put her away in a convent-like setting where she never married. But the text leads in another direction & suggests a darker outcome. If you read the narrative it looks like Jephthah carried out his vow & offered his daughter as a sacrifice, after a two month period which she requested.
JEPTHAH HAD A BURNING FAITH AND ZEAL, BUT ZEAL WITH NO WISDOM WILL ALWAYS GO WRONG
Jepthah evidently had enough faith to get his name in Hebrews 11 but his knowledge of God came up short. All we can say is that the times of the Judges were a dark page in Israel’s history & it would only get worse as the book ends.
Jepthah’s misguided & ignorant actions were completely unnecessary & totally wrong. The Canaanites could do things like that but God never permitted His people to sacrifice human beings as offerings to Him. Yes, it’s wise to keep our vows to God but Jepthah’s vow was made in ignorance of who God really is & what He requires.
While we should be aflame with love for the Lord, there is a zeal that’s destructive, divisive & deadly. It divides homes, nations & churches. This misguided zeal many times will find a good teaching or principle & drive it to an extreme making a bad thing out of a good thing. The cause of Christ has been deeply hurt by extremists with misguided zeal. Some good causes have been lost because the people propagating them got a fighting spirit & veered off track.
HERE’S AN EXAMPLE OF A ZEALOT
Jesus took Peter, James & John to the garden of Gethsemane & asked them to watch & pray. As Jesus prayed, the soldiers came to take Him away. Peter awoke, saw what was happening, pulled out his sword & cut off the ear of Malchus. Jesus rebuked Peter & put the ear back on; He healed him supernaturally & miraculously. Now you talk about zeal!! Peter was full of zeal!—misguided zeal. What did Peter do wrong?
PETER HAD THE WRONG ENEMY!
Malchus was a slave & servant of the high priest. Many times zealots fight the wrong enemy. We wrestle not against flesh & blood. Never let the devil tempt you to put on the boxing gloves with another Christian. There are far too many circular firing squads in families & in the church today.
PETER HAD THE WRONG WEAPON
2 Corinthians 10:4 says—For the weapons of our warfare a re not carnal but mighty through God…
However, Peter was using the right weapon on the Day of Pentecost when he took the two-edged sword of God’s Word & saw three-thousand people swept into the kingdom of God.
PETER HAD THE WRONG STRENGHT
James said,--For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.—James 1:20
I’m so glad Jesus healed Malcus. What kind of testimony would it have been for Jesus, for a hot-headed Christian to cut a man’s ear off? Only when we’re controlled by the Spirit can we bring Glory to God & His work.
WOULD GOOD THEOLOGY HAVE KEPT JEPTHAH’S UGLY ACTION FROM TAKING PLACE?
Most assuredly it would have. The Ten Commandments forbade murder while Leviticus 27 & Deuteronomy 18 disallows the offering of human sacrifice.
Also, all Jepthah had to do was talk to God & following through with his vow wouldn’t have been required. But he didn’t have the working knowledge to understand that fact. Acts 17:30 says;
And at the times of this ignorance God winked, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.
The fact that Jephthah received honorable mention as a man of great faith in Hebrews 11 shows us that God in some cases has overlooked ignorance, but He never overlooks unbelief.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism was a man of many letters & a great orator. Once in a huge open air meeting a man yelled out, “John Wesley, God doesn’t need your education.” To which Wesley replied, “No, and He doesn’t need your ignorance either.”
The prophet Hosea wrote;
My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
In Luke 7:28 Jesus said…..among those that are born of woman there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist: but he that is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he.
How could the least of the Kingdom be greater than John Baptist? John lived before Christ died on the cross. Once Jesus died, there was a spirit of revelation released & even a five year old now could understand more about God’s ultimate intention than any of the patriarchs. To put it bluntly, Jephthah & those who existed during his lifetime get some wiggle room because of the dark days they lived in. However, you & I live in the blazing noon-day of prophetic knowledge.
Here’s a little food for thought; both Simon Peter & Judas acted in such a way as to be called “hitting bottom” spiritually. Peter hit bottom by denying any knowledge of Christ, & Judas hit bottom by actually selling Jesus out for money.
To me, the basic reason the two men reacted to their failures differently was that somehow Peter was able to grab hold of what the cross meant & Judas never saw it. Peter lived to fight another day but Judas committed suicide.
What the two men did was equally despicable. Of course Judas sold Jesus out for money, but we shouldn’t forget, he took the money back & threw it at the feet of the people he got it from.
WHAT IS THEOLOGY?
The very mention of the word theology makes some people’s eyes roll back in their heads & scares the living daylights out of them. Their eyes glaze over & they envision old white-haired men speaking in polysyllables. They conjure up lists of genealogies & categories & dry barren wastelands without a drop of water.
Simply put, theology is –the study of God. This might surprise you, but I’m a theologian. What may surprise you more is that you’re a theologian too. Does that surprise you? Why do I call you a theologian? Look at it this way. If someone were to ask you about the origin of the earth, the creation of man, the prophecies about Christ’s coming, His ultimate death on the cross & His resurrection, what would you do?
I feel certain you’d proceed to the best of your abilities to explain it all to them, would you not? That’s what a theologian does. Everyone who reads the Bible has built up some sort of theology. If a person never goes to church or reads the Bible they’ll still have a set of ideas about the way the world works & some working thoughts & attitudes about God.
Or even the lack of a real, living God. Still, this is their personal theology. So the real question isn’t whether or not we all have a theology, but whether the theology we have is good theology. By that I mean is it accurate, biblical, coherent & consistent?
WAS JESUS A THEOLOGIAN?
Jesus indeed was a theologian. He told the Samaritan woman; - those who worship God must worship Him in spirit & in truth. [John4:23]
Luke records a significant event to underscore this. After Jesus rose from the dead He fell into a conversation with two disciples who were traveling on the road to Emmaus. He found them talking about the events surrounding His crucifixion. Failing to recognize Him, they unburdened their hearts about His crucifixion.
Jesus’ response was instructive. He didn’t go into His emotions & how it felt to go through all He’d been through. Exactly what did Jesus do? He started giving these two men an exegetical Bible lesson. He said;
O foolish men and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?
And beginning with Moses and all the prophets He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the scriptures. And their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.
And they said one to another, were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the scriptures to us? [Luke 24:13-32]
The significance here is that the miracle working Lord who’d just been raised from the dead explained the Law & Prophets to these men. He was unfolding some great theology in their hearing.
When Jesus was in the wilderness during His days of testing, Satan came to Him trying to get Him to show His power. But Jesus refused, hitting Satan time after time with “It is written.”
IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN MIRACLES, YOU’RE NOT A REALIST
A man once told me he didn’t believe in miracles & didn’t believe God healed the sick. I said, “Don’t worry about it brother, miracles aren’t for you anyway.” He shot back, “Why aren’t they for me?” I answered, “Miracles are for believers & since you don’t believe in them you won’t be bothered by them.”
Some people have the faith to be healed, however they don’t have any wisdom, consequently they lose the healing God gave them. Let me explain.
When I was a teenager my father pastored a church in Daytona Beach. God used him in those years in the area of divine healing. Dad preached faith & healing & always prayed for the sick on Sunday nights. One night a boy about ten years old was healed of a muscle-wasting disease of some kind in his legs. He wore braces & after the prayer his parents took the braces off & the boy walked normally.
The healing was so outstanding people all over town were talking about it. The boy was taken to a doctor & the doctor validated the healing & released him from wearing the braces.
The family didn’t live far from the parsonage we lived in next to the church & soon after this boy was healed we’d see him ride by the church on his bicycle sometimes when it was almost dark.
I remember hearing my father comment that if the parents didn’t use some wisdom, the boy would have a relapse & be back in braces again. He was making up for lost time in riding his bicycle & I could understand the kid’s excitement about being able to ride again. But my father saw it was obvious that no wisdom was being used.
The parents of that boy had great faith & no doubt a great love for God, but they weren’t exercising wisdom. When God healed the boy, He didn’t put him in a body with bionic legs but because of his new-found healing & the joy that it brought to him, the kid was using those legs harder than he would normally use them.
Sure enough in a few weeks the boy was back in his braces. In retrospect, I fully believe he’d have kept his healing if a modicum of wisdom had been used. Folks, God thought enough of our brain to wrap a skull around it & He expects us to use it.
You’ve probably read about people who are such fanatics they pray for a child or an adult & then withhold their medication from them. If they should go into a coma, they refuse to call a doctor or take the person to get help. Does the word ignoramus come to mind? Some of these good but misguided folk are unnecessarily in jail for manslaughter for the simple reason they had strong faith but their theology was weak.
It would seem obvious to me that if God has healed a person, it wouldn’t hurt for them to stay on their medication at least until a doctor has been consulted. It’s a mistake to think we can put God in a corner & manipulate Him into doing our biding by taking these extreme actions.
There are other misguided folk who tempt God by playing with poisonous snakes. I’ll tell you this much, as scared [respectful] as I am of snakes, one of them might bite where I used to be standing but if I can help it they won’t bite where I’m standing presently.
Oh well. As I’ve said, I don’t really know if Jephthah did sacrifice his daughter but I guess I’m in good company. The bottom line is, he was pleasing enough to God to be mentioned among the eminent believers who did great things by faith.—Heb.11:32
If Jephthah did it, he did it after two months of serious consideration & consultation. It certainly wouldn’t justify an act of that kind by anyone else. We can say what we will about Jephthah, he was an extraordinary person.
If we’re in a quandary about this story, let’s not lose any sleep over it. Let’s spend that time & energy in praising God & taking double comfort in the fact that the things necessary to our salvation aren’t lost in the misty moonlight, but are plain enough.
Praise His Name!!
Blessings,
John
WAS JESUS A THEOLOGIAN?
Jesus indeed was a theologian. He told the Samaritan woman; - those who worship God must worship Him in spirit & in truth. [John4:23]
Luke records a significant event to underscore this. After Jesus rose from the dead He fell into a conversation with two disciples who were traveling on the road to Emmaus. He found them talking about the events surrounding His crucifixion. Failing to recognize Him, they unburdened their hearts about His crucifixion.
Jesus’ response was instructive. He didn’t go into His emotions & how it felt to go through all He’d been through. Exactly what did Jesus do? He started giving these two men an exegetical Bible lesson. He said;
O foolish men and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?
And beginning with Moses and all the prophets He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the scriptures. And their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.
And they said one to another, were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the scriptures to us? [Luke 24:13-32]
The significance here is that the miracle working Lord who’d just been raised from the dead explained the Law & Prophets to these men. He was unfolding some great theology in their hearing.
When Jesus was in the wilderness during His days of testing, Satan came to Him trying to get Him to show His power. But Jesus refused, hitting Satan time after time with “It is written.”
IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN MIRACLES, YOU’RE NOT A REALIST
A man once told me he didn’t believe in miracles & didn’t believe God healed the sick. I said, “Don’t worry about it brother, miracles aren’t for you anyway.” He shot back, “Why aren’t they for me?” I answered, “Miracles are for believers & since you don’t believe in them you won’t be bothered by them.”
Some people have the faith to be healed, however they don’t have any wisdom, consequently they lose the healing God gave them. Let me explain.
When I was a teenager my father pastored a church in Daytona Beach. God used him in those years in the area of divine healing. Dad preached faith & healing & always prayed for the sick on Sunday nights. One night a boy about ten years old was healed of a muscle-wasting disease of some kind in his legs. He wore braces & after the prayer his parents took the braces off & the boy walked normally.
The healing was so outstanding people all over town were talking about it. The boy was taken to a doctor & the doctor validated the healing & released him from wearing the braces.
The family didn’t live far from the parsonage we lived in next to the church & soon after this boy was healed we’d see him ride by the church on his bicycle sometimes when it was almost dark.
I remember hearing my father comment that if the parents didn’t use some wisdom, the boy would have a relapse & be back in braces again. He was making up for lost time in riding his bicycle & I could understand the kid’s excitement about being able to ride again. But my father saw it was obvious that no wisdom was being used.
The parents of that boy had great faith & no doubt a great love for God, but they weren’t exercising wisdom. When God healed the boy, He didn’t put him in a body with bionic legs but because of his new-found healing & the joy that it brought to him, the kid was using those legs harder than he would normally use them.
Sure enough in a few weeks the boy was back in his braces. In retrospect, I fully believe he’d have kept his healing if a modicum of wisdom had been used. Folks, God thought enough of our brain to wrap a skull around it & He expects us to use it.
You’ve probably read about people who are such fanatics they pray for a child or an adult & then withhold their medication from them. If they should go into a coma, they refuse to call a doctor or take the person to get help. Does the word ignoramus come to mind? Some of these good but misguided folk are unnecessarily in jail for manslaughter for the simple reason they had strong faith but their theology was weak.
It would seem obvious to me that if God has healed a person, it wouldn’t hurt for them to stay on their medication at least until a doctor has been consulted. It’s a mistake to think we can put God in a corner & manipulate Him into doing our biding by taking these extreme actions.
There are other misguided folk who tempt God by playing with poisonous snakes. I’ll tell you this much, as scared [respectful] as I am of snakes, one of them might bite where I used to be standing but if I can help it they won’t bite where I’m standing presently.
Oh well. As I’ve said, I don’t really know if Jephthah did sacrifice his daughter but I guess I’m in good company. The bottom line is, he was pleasing enough to God to be mentioned among the eminent believers who did great things by faith.—Heb.11:32
If Jephthah did it, he did it after two months of serious consideration & consultation. It certainly wouldn’t justify an act of that kind by anyone else. We can say what we will about Jephthah, he was an extraordinary person.
If we’re in a quandary about this story, let’s not lose any sleep over it. Let’s spend that time & energy in praising God & taking double comfort in the fact that the things necessary to our salvation aren’t lost in the misty moonlight, but are plain enough.
Praise His Name!!
Blessings,
John
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