Children do not inherit their father’s religion by natural succession. They must be trained in it. Lord Arthur Hervey
The challenge, of course, is in the doing.
Which brings us to a strange book about a period of time that’s been called “the dim twilight of history.”* It’s dim, alright, but there’s enough light in the stark language of the Book of Judges to remind us how quickly faith is lost, and how powerfully it acts upon families—and cultures—when it is regained.
Settling in the Promised Land proves to be a tall order. Ultimately, the Israelites are unable or unwilling to completely rid the country of the idol-worshipping tribal cultures embedded all around them.
The result is one of the saddest verses in the Bible:
When all that generation [Joshua’s] had been gathered to their fathers [died], another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel. Judges 2:10
Did not know? About Moses and delivery from Egypt? About the plagues? About the Red Sea, the pillar and the cloud, Mt. Sinai and the Law? About water in the desert? And the shameful fear of ten spies and 38 more years of desert life? About Joshua and Jericho and lightning military campaigns that swiftly subdued the land in which they live?
Oh, there are monuments. For instance, while crossing the Jordan, every tribe extracts a stone from the riverbed and helps build a monument on the Jericho side. The idea, says Joshua, is that, in the future, when kids ask about the heap of stones, the adults answer, “the river Jordan stopped flowing when the ark of God went across!” A noble purpose, for sure, but the tribes do not settle on the banks of the Jordan. They spread out around the country. This means that, “in time to come”, it is the responsibility of parents to take the time, again and again, to tell their children about the mighty works of the Lord their God—and through those stories instill a mighty faith in the hearts of those children.
But life intervenes. The inhabitants of Canaan are disinclined to be conquered. It’s hard going, what with staking your claim to property, trying to get your family settled, and planting crops. The result, according to an alarming list in the first chapter of Judges, is that a number of the tribes give up trying to rid their tribal allotments of Canaanites, and either put them under forced labor, or simply coexist. Unfortunately, “coexist” too often means “adopt the religious practices of the pagans.”
This is the reason for “did not know.” The generations following Joshua are busy with important work (true), necessary work (true), work that would benefit their families, (also true). But the most important work is neglected.
Gideon provides clarity. In the middle of a stressful workday of grinding wheat in a winepress while trying to hide from the raiding, thieving, destructive Midianites, the Angel of the Lord appears sitting under a tree and calls out:
The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!
Gideon’s response, paraphrased, is:
If the Lord is with us, where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about?
So they have heard the stories. They know about the miracles. But deep, reverent love for the Lord their God has leaked away, along with obedience to His Law. The bond between the historical accounts of miracles done by God for their forbears and their own individual lives has been severed—by inattention, distraction, busyness, and a fascination with other religious/social practices in the neighborhood. All too soon the children whose forbears had been miraculously delivered from suffering and bondage, and for whom a wonderful land had been prepared, are worshipping a fertility goddess whose followers engage in serial prostitution. Eventually, they will be doing unthinkable things in the worship of the Baals and Molechs of surrounding nations.
However,
the Book of Judges, with all its strange, sad goings-on in the dim twilight of history, also gives us:
- the strong, esteemed leadership of the prophetess, Deborah, as she directs her people to victory—her song in chapter 5, is glorious, triumphant,
- the rest of Gideon’s story with its unlikely victory over the marauders,
- and Samson, a man whose passions were his downfall, yet whose redemption is another mighty lesson.
We tell their stories, triumphs and tragedies, again and again to the generations that follow us. We train young minds to understand the arc of history as being under the dominion of our sovereign God. In the telling and the training we want them to apprehend that nothing in this life is more important than knowing God.
And in this training we tell our own stories, how God saved us, His miraculous provision and protection for our families, His sanctifying work in the life we lead right now—so they can inherit what C.S. Lewis calls that “lively feeling of the truth”.
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