{"id":3306,"date":"2014-01-03T08:16:18","date_gmt":"2014-01-03T12:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.districtdiva.com\/?p=3306"},"modified":"2014-01-03T08:16:18","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T12:16:18","slug":"ratchets-of-the-bible-jephthah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/ratchets-of-the-bible-jephthah\/","title":{"rendered":"Ratchets of the Bible: Jephthah and His Daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"One<\/a>

One last lift before I kill you<\/p><\/div>\n

As Christians in a worldly world, it’s very hard to find entertainment that encourages, inspires and strengthens our faith while also not being terrible (here’s looking at you, Kirk Cameron and all things TBN-related). \u00a0Also, it’s just a proven fact that all people, regardless of race, sex, class or nationality, enjoy a bit of ratchetness and drama. \u00a0These things are the intercultural unifiers. Unfortunately, the Real Housewives from Hell<\/em>, Love & Hoodrats\u00a0<\/em>and other such shows can lead Christians down the unholy path of what my mother likes to call “communing with the Devil.”<\/p>\n

But fear not, Christians: I am starting a new series called “Ratchets of the Bible,” (I bought the url already<\/span><\/a>;<\/strong><\/span> don’t even try to steal this from me!). Fortunately, the Bible is chock full of tricks and ratchetness from which you can get your entire life. (For real, it was foretold in Proverbs<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/strong>, “The words of God giveth life.”)<\/p>\n

Take Jephthah, for example. This Old Testament warrior wanted to win a war against the dreaded Ammonites and, knowing God could help him do it, this ratchet made one of the dumbest and unnecessary bargains with God of all time. \u00a0But don’t take my word for it; let’s go straight to the source.<\/p>\n

Judges 11:29-40<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n
\n

29\u00a0Then the Spirit\u00a0of the\u00a0Lord\u00a0came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah\u00a0of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites.\u00a030\u00a0And Jephthah made a vow\u00a0to the\u00a0Lord: \u201cIf you give the Ammonites into my hands,\u00a031\u00a0whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph\u00a0from the Ammonites will be the\u00a0Lord\u2019s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

32\u00a0Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the\u00a0Lord\u00a0gave them into his hands.\u00a033\u00a0He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith,\u00a0as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.<\/p>\n

34\u00a0When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing\u00a0to the sound of timbrels!\u00a0She was an only child.\u00a0Except for her he had neither son nor daughter.\u00a035\u00a0When he saw her, he tore his clothes\u00a0and cried, \u201cOh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord\u00a0that I cannot break.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

36\u00a0\u201cMy father,\u201d she replied, \u201cyou have given your word to the\u00a0Lord. Do to me just as you promised,\u00a0now that the\u00a0Lord has avenged you\u00a0of your enemies,\u00a0the Ammonites.\u00a037\u00a0But grant me this one request,\u201d she said. \u201cGive me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

38\u00a0\u201cYou may go,\u201d he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry.\u00a039\u00a0After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.<\/p>\n

From this comes the Israelite tradition\u00a040\u00a0that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

THE TAKEAWAY<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you make a stupid promise to God that is in no way your place to make (like whether or not other people get to live based on your victory or defeat, for example) you don’t actually have to go through with it. God is not going to hold you to something He never asked you to do in the first place.<\/p>\n

What Jephthah should have learned from this foolishness was that God is merciful and helps us out in spite of ourselves. Just like when another warrior, Joshua, ridiculously asked God to make the “sun stand stil<\/span><\/a>l<\/strong><\/span>” so that Joshua’s army could defeat his enemies. Of course, Joshua didn’t know then that the earth actually revolves around the sun and not the other way around, but you know what? God granted Joshua’s request and made it daylight a little longer for Joshua anyway. Know why? Because God perfects our imperfect requests. If Jephthah would’ve just learned that lesson, he wouldn’t have had to murder his daughter, blame God for it, and be crowned our Ratchet of the Week.<\/p>\n

Also, women (and men who give women relationship advice):\u00a0\u00a0THERE ARE WORSE THINGS IN LIFE THAN NO MAN PUTTING A RING ON IT<\/em>.\u00a0LIKE BEING BURNT.TO.A.CRISP!\u00a0<\/em>I really need you to know this. Blast you, patriarchy!<\/p>\n

Finally, let’s do the opposite of what the Israelites did and not<\/em>\u00a0celebrate the stupidity of others. Unless of course you’re sharing this blog post with all of your friends and family.<\/p>\n

I made you read the Bible! \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Christians in a worldly world, it’s very hard to find entertainment that encourages, inspires and strengthens our faith while also not being terrible (here’s looking at you, Kirk Cameron and all things TBN-related). \u00a0Also, it’s just a proven fact that all people, regardless of race, sex, class or nationality,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[362,382,491,506,511,764],"class_list":["post-3306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ratchets-of-the-bible","tag-fun-bible-study","tag-gifs-for-your-life","tag-jephthah","tag-joshua","tag-judges","tag-ratchets-of-the-bible"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7nB6F-Rk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}