A Renewed Mind

One of the shocking stories in the book of Judges occurs in its closing chapters. As chapter 19 begins, “a certain Levite” went to Jerusalem to retrieve his runaway concubine. During their return to the hill country of Ephraim, darkness set in forcing them to stay in the town of Gibeah, where an old man kindly took them in for the night. Worthless fellows from the town came to the old man’s home seeking sex. The old man gave them the Levite’s concubine and the Gibeonites abused her until morning. As a result of the abuse, she died. The next morning, the Levite found her and took her back to his home. Upon arriving at home, he cut her into twelve pieces and sent one piece to each of the leaders of Israel’s twelve tribes.

This proved shocking and disturbing to Israel’s leaders as well as modern readers. The leaders and “all the people of Israel” gathered and the Levite told them what happened. All the people agreed together (literally, “as one man”) that justice must be sought against the leaders of Gibeah and they appealed to the people of the tribe of Benjamin (to which Gibeah belonged). ”But the Benjaminites would not listen to their brothers, the people of Israel” (20:13) and came out to fight against Israel.

Despite the guilt of the Benjaminites, Israel was not eager to fight against them. Instead, when the battle lines were being drawn, the people of Israel inquired of God and God told them to let the men of Judah go up against them. They obeyed, and on the first day, the Benjaminites won, killing 22,000 men of Israel. Afterwards, the Word says:

But the people, the men of Israel, took courage, and again formed the battle line in the same place where they had formed it on the first day. And the people of Israel went up and wept before the Lord until the evening. And they inquired of the Lord… (20:22-24a)

On the second day, again the Benjaminites defeated Israel, destroying 18,000 Israelites. And again the people of Israel wept before the Lord (20:26). With prayer and fasting, they inquired of the Lord and the Lord again told them to go up against Benjamin, promising victory. On the third day, God kept his promise and the men of Israel defeated Benjamin; their men, their cities, and their possessions were destroyed and burned. Only 600 of the Benjaminite men survived when they fled into the wilderness.

Afterwards, we might expect Israel to celebrate the victory that the Lord gave them. Instead, we find something very different. We find more weeping: 

And the people came to Bethel and sat there till evening before God, and they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. And they said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel, that today there should be one tribe lacking in Israel?” (21:2-3)

Within this story we see an obvious illustration of discipline within the people of God. A serious and shocking sin was committed by some of their leaders. God’s Law was clear to the rest of the leaders and they took action. They called the proper authorities to account for the sin and to purge the guilty parties from the congregation. Unfortunately, the offenders and their leaders would not acknowledge the sin and retaliated against those who brought the charges. [When our sin is confronted, it is so easy and often seems justified to attack those who confront our sin, rather than to discuss the charges themselves. Of course, most of us know this too well from our own experience.] In the end, however, God’s justice prevailed and the offenders were removed from the family of God.

Clear case of congregational church discipline. Are there times when God’s people must discipline or brothers and sisters in order to protect God’s church and the sinning member? Most definitely. And are there times when that discipline could appear harsh? And does the lack of discipline and the toleration of sin end up hurting the body even more than the initial sin? Yes and yes again. And so, the church must practice discipline. End of story? I think there is something more, something very important for us to see.

The weeping of Israel is very informative, and I find it very encouraging. As Israel carried out the God-given instruction of discipline against the tribe of Benjamin, they wept. Three times in the text, it tells us how they wept before the Lord. At first glance, we may assume that in the first two occurrences they wept because their “side” had lost so many soldiers in the battle. But the author tells us very clearly that after the first loss, “They took courage”. Notice, it is only after they are on their way back to the battle that “they wept before the Lord” (20:23). It seems to me that the tears revealed the anguish provoked by the necessity of fighting against their brothers, more than grief induced by their loss.

At any rate, this becomes very clear in chapter 21. The process of carrying out the Lord’s discipline against their fellow tribe caused them to weep and lament before the Lord (21:2). They do not rejoice that they were in the right; they do not fret over what their brother’s sin has cost them; they do not go off looking for another error to correct. A “brother” has been taken from them. And so, they weep.

Surely, this must be the attitude of our hearts when the church must carry out discipline. There must be an unbending, steel-like commitment to obey God, guard his name, and protect his church–his people. But there must also be a soft and tender heart that weeps for our erring brothers and sisters. The practice of discipline must be painful. If it is not, we had better be careful. If we can “discipline” without a tender heart that is willing to suffer for the sake of our brother’s repentance, we may be exalting ourselves according to our own self-righteousness at the cost of our brother’s life.

Should we ever find ourselves among a congregation that must discipline a brother or sister, may we remember Gibeah and the weeping of Israel. And may we weep with them.

[Note: This is not in response to any situation within our congregation. It is simply the fruit of meditating through the book of Judges. This was the illustration that we did not have time for last Sunday morning.]