“Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. – Numbers 31:15

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 17, 2018): Numbers 31

Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling commented that “There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.” Blaming others sometimes seems to be a national obsession, starting with our political leaders and then extending down to the rest of us. Nothing ever seems to be our fault. We can always find someone else to bear the brunt of the blame. Parents, counselors, and even trusted friends become responsible for all of the ways that our lives have gone wrong. It seems to be a rare moment when someone stands up and says “this one’s on me. I did this, and I should not have.”

Moses anger at this moment is based on the idea that Israel did not take the women seriously, just because they were women. To the soldiers, the women were not a threat. And yet, it was the women who had tempted the men into sin, and it was the idolatry of the women that had caused the anger of God to burn against the nation. In the radical equality of the Bible, the women were responsible for their actions. And Israel needed to understand this.

The truth is that we are often tripped up by things that we don’t recognize as a threat. As a culture, we seem to have moved into an era when pragmatism and obtaining results is more important than taking a moral stand that reflects what we profess to believe. The church seems to be willing to lie to get what it wants on issues like abortion and end of life care. We are willing to ignore Jesus’s words about taking care of the weak and the poor to put a salve on our fear of the foreigner. What we don’t realize is that these concessions are changing who we are as followers of God, and it is changing the influence that we have on our society.

Pastor David Guzik sums up this passage with these words:

Though most Israelites thought these women were safe, they were more dangerous to Israel than an army of mighty warriors. Israel could overcome mighty warriors if they were spiritually strong; but if they were seduced into immorality and idolatry, they would certainly fall.

The words are important for us to hear in our pragmatic society. If we are spiritually and morally strong, we will prevail on every issue that is truly important. But if we trade our moral standing to win on what we consider to be important, we will lose – always. We need to be willing to be responsible for our own morality because we will most certainly fall if we fail to remain spiritually strong.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Numbers 32