Not willing to fight to the Death

April 24, 2009

Today's Reading: Judges 18-19 and 1 Corinthians 9

I’ve read the Bible a few times, and I always get stuck on Micah. Sometimes when you read the Bible, there are some stories in which characters really exemplify Christian virtues, and we can learn a valuable lesson from them.

Take David facing Goliath, teaching us an obvious lesson in courage. That or Abraham, whose willingness to sacrifice his son teaches us the importance of trusting in God. You could say that Ruth teaches us about love and hope.

I have a problem with the story of Micah. The issue I have with that story is there doesn’t seem to be any sort of moral or anything. In fact, it doesn’t really have any plot structure.

I mean, here’s the deal, Micah gets an idol, then he gets a priest. Then one day, some army comes and takes away his idol and his priest. Micah gets ticked off, and that is about it.

I suppose that if there was some story about how Micah chased down the guys, kicked their butts, and claimed his idol and priest back, then maybe we could pass this off as a revenge story or something. Of course, I honestly don’t want Mr. Micah to get his idol back, because I think the Bible forbids idols, you know that.

Maybe he could get his priest back, and then say: “you know what, you really shouldn’t be doing this whole idol thing”. I’m not going back to you. Then Micah learns his lesson, the priest learns his lesson, and voila, you have the “feel-good movie of the year”.

Yeah, I don’t see Hollywood adopting Micah’s story into a movie anytime soon. There is no drama, hardly any story, and nothing really happening. It would definitely feel like one of those independent films with no drama, hardly any story, and nothing ever happening.

I guess Micah shows what in the world that we humans find worth fighting for. It has some reverse resemblance to what Paul says when he says “I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize”.

Paul is willing to suffer in the flesh for his faith, and did. Micah, he was not willing to suffer at all, from what it sounds like. I might be misinterpreting this story, though.

Perhaps I can pull this moral out of it. Be willing to fight for what is worth fighting for. There are some things in this life that I will fight and die to keep, like my family or my faith. Everything else, I guess I could let go. Maybe that is the lesson that Micah learned, assuming that anything can be learned here.