Israel had strong leadership under Moses and Joshua during the exodus, and later under David and Solomon in the monarchy. In both eras there was a strong human leader who represented God and ruled society on the basis of divine law. But in these intervening years, the Israelites lived in a “spiritually pluralistic” society. Due to Israel’s various failures, the society of Canaan was a mixture of pagan and believing peoples. There are many parallels between that situation and ours today. Largely due to the failures of the church, believers in the West find themselves living in a religiously pluralistic society. Individual Christians work and live among a great variety of gods–not only those of other formal religions, but also the gods of wealth, celebrity, pleasure, ideology, achievement.

Christians reading Judges today must ask: how can we be sure to follow God rather than the idols of our society and neighbors? How can we renew ourselves when we fail or fall?