{"id":27768,"date":"2023-08-31T22:00:35","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T05:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/judges-19_16-30-copy\/"},"modified":"2023-09-01T11:17:15","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T18:17:15","slug":"judges-20_1-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/judges-20_1-17\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Lose Your Credibility by Blaming Prematurely"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judges 20:1-17\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Judges 20:1-17.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Judges 20:1-17 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n1\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then all the Israelites from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came out as one man and assembled before the\u00a0LORD\u00a0in Mizpah.
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The leaders of all the people of the tribes of Israel took their places in the assembly of the people of God, four hundred thousand soldiers armed with swords.
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0(The Benjamites heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah.) Then the Israelites said, “Tell us how this awful thing happened.”
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0So the Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, said, “I and my concubine came to Gibeah in Benjamin to spend the night.
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0During the night the men of Gibeah came after me and surrounded the house, intending to kill me. They raped my concubine, and she died.
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I took my concubine, cut her into pieces and sent one piece to each region of Israel’s inheritance, because they committed this lewd and disgraceful act in Israel.
\n7\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Now, all you Israelites, speak up and give your verdict.”
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0All the people rose as one man, saying, “None of us will go home. No, not one of us will return to his house.
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But now this is what we’ll do to Gibeah: We’ll go up against it as the lot directs.
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0We’ll take ten men out of every hundred from all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred from a thousand, and a thousand from ten thousand, to get provisions for the army. Then, when the army arrives at Gibeah in Benjamin, it can give them what they deserve for all this vileness done in Israel.”
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0So all the men of Israel got together and united as one man against the city.
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The tribes of Israel sent men throughout the tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What about this awful crime that was committed among you?
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Now surrender those wicked men of Gibeah so that we may put them to death and purge the evil from Israel.” But the Benjamites would not listen to their fellow Israelites.
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0From their towns they came together at Gibeah to fight against the Israelites.
\n15\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0At once the Benjamites mobilized twenty-six thousand swordsmen from their towns, in addition to seven hundred chosen men from those living in Gibeah.
\n16\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Among all these soldiers there were seven hundred chosen men who were left-handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.
\n17\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Israel, apart from Benjamin, mustered four hundred thousand swordsmen, all of them fighting men.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 1-17:\u00a0 As a result of Benjamites in Gibeah gang raping the concubine that we read about in Judges 19, all the other tribes of Israel gather together at Mizpah without the tribe of Benjamin, though the Benjamites had heard about this gathering (v3).\u00a0 As a result of that gathering, the other tribes of Israel muster an army against the tribe of Benjamin demanding that the gang rapists be handed over and put to death.\u00a0 When the Benjamites refuse to hand over the gang rapists, both the Benjamites on one hand and the rest of Israel on the other prepare to fight one another.<\/p>\n

Why did the Benjamites refuse to hand over the gang rapists?\u00a0 It could be because the Benjamites felt slighted and unfairly treated by the other tribes of Israel.\u00a0 The Benjamites had heard that the other tribes of Israel were meeting at Mizpah (v3) but they were not invited themselves.\u00a0 If you were the Benjamites, you may have felt that the other tribes of Israel had already reached their conclusion that the Benjamites were guilty, rather than taking time to hear the Benjamites\u2019 side of the story.\u00a0 If that is the case, what can we learn from this?<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Innocent until proven guilty is a good approach to take when trying to resolve conflict.\u00a0 Rather than immediately concluding that the accused is guilty, it is better for everyone involved to withhold judgment and wait until there is clear evidence pointing otherwise.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When we prematurely jump to conclusions about someone being guilty, not giving them a chance to speak, we can eventually lose our credibility and trust with them and invite unnecessary conflict.<\/p>\n

Father, I pray that I would wisely communicate with others and avoid any unnecessary conflict.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n


\n Copyright \u00a9 2021 Justin Lim. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Judges 20:1-17.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Judges 20:1-17 (NIV)
\n1\u00a0\u00a0Then all the Israelites from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came out as one man and assembled before the\u00a0LORD\u00a0in Mizpah.
\n2\u00a0\u00a0The leaders of all the people of the tribes of Israel took their places in the assembly of the people of God, four hundred thousand soldiers armed with swords.
\n3\u00a0\u00a0(The Benjamites heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah.) Then the Israelites said, “Tell us how this awful thing happened.”
\n4\u00a0\u00a0So the Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, said, “I and my concubine came to Gibeah in Benjamin to spend the night.<\/p>\n

On verses 1-17:\u00a0 As a result of Benjamites in Gibeah gang raping the concubine that we read about in Judges 19, all the other tribes of Israel gather together at Mizpah without the tribe of Benjamin, though the Benjamites had heard about this gathering (v3).\u00a0 As a result of that gathering, the other tribes of Israel muster an army against the tribe of Benjamin demanding that the gang rapists be handed over and put to death.\u00a0 When the Benjamites refuse to hand over the gang rapists, both the Benjamites on one hand and the rest of Israel on the other prepare to fight one another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27768"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27963,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27768\/revisions\/27963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}