The story in Judges 17 is not interesting. It’s a bunch of trivial people doing kind of dumb, weird things. Micah robs his mother, but then he gives the money back. Then his mother cheats God. Then Micah hires a Levite, and then Danites hire the Levite instead. What’s the point? 

On the one hand, this is terrible storytelling. Why was this incident chosen out of this whole period of history? There’s nobody in this narrative who you care about. They’re shallow and uninteresting. And we’re left completely unprepared for what happens in the following chapters, where there’s rape and civil war and genocide. So why is this here?

Every other part of Judges is about God’s salvation. And this passage shows us what we look like without his salvation. In other words, this shows us the nature of sin, and it shows us some things that are very surprising. This tells us 1) what sin does to us, 2) what sin does to God, and 3) how we can be cured of it. 

This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 7, 1999. Series: What’s Really Wrong with the World. Scripture: Judges 17:1-13.

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