What is that smell???

Reading: Judges 20-21 and Matthew 1

Scripture: Judges 20:5-6, And the leaders of Gibeah rose against me and surrounded the house against me by night. They meant to kill me, and they violated my concubine, and she is dead. So I took hold of my concubine and cut her in pieces and sent her throughout all the country of the inheritance of Israel, for they have committed abomination and outrage in Israel.

Thoughts: In the honor and shame culture of the time a concubine was somewhere between a wife and a servant, they are like a bought wife with less rights, not that women had many at the time. Even with that true just from a humanity stance I do not know how anyone could cut up a body and send it across their nation. Without refrigeration and it is not likely he did any sort of preservation by the time those pieces got to the different leaders they would small even good meat that has been left out for a little too long smells bad. In addition to that depending on how it was presented and given to those leaders they would have become unclean. Just as the actions of these Benjaminites brought shame and destruction on much of their tribe, when we do not stand for God’s law and God’s truth, the evil will prosper. In today’s world we are seeing the changing of the meanings of words to be meaningless, we are being told that things that God says are wrong are good. Let us hold fast to God’s word and God’s truth, we are told that the world will hate us because it first hated Him whom we follow. Let us love the world that will hate us but also walk boldly in God’s truth. 

Prayer: Lord God you are the way, the truth, and the Life, we follow you and seek after you in a world that is not. I ask that you help me to be a light wherever I go, may your love and joy overflow onto those I interact with. Help me hold onto your truth and overcome the evil influences around me. Mold me and refine me into the vessel you need me to be.