Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is a Biblical Sexual Ethic Good for Women? | Historical Books | Judges 21

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Have women benefitted from the sexual revolution? Is the Christian sexual ethic good for women? How can we love our female neighbors? In today's episode, Tanya shares how Judges 21 reminds us of our holy, pure, and loving God. If you're listening on Spotify, comment below one takeaway from today's episode! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Judges 21

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. Last week, over 100 girls spent Valentine's Day evening in a church gym transformed into a prom-worthy dance room. With whole bouquets of flowers adorning the tables, banners hung, and pink plates and napkins set with a place card for every single girl in attendance. Grown men acted as servers pouring Shirley temples upon request. It was a community pouring into a group of middle school girls in one of the most beautiful ways, showing them how valuable they are, showing them the kind of love they truly are worthy of, showing them how precious they are in the kingdom of God.

At the exact same time, just two hours away, a woman stood at a bus stop in St. Louis. She had been trapped in a sex trafficking ring for two years. Desperate to escape, yet dependent on the addiction, her abusers had forced a upon her. She waited at the bus stop to pick up her next hit. There she noticed a card with a phone number for immediate help. She picked it up, dialed, and was given instructions on where to go. She was received with open arms and loving care. The next day and the one after that, she was supported along the path to freedom. She's one of the lucky ones. Or is she? This is the paradox of our culture. This is the tragedy we live in.

Fellow believers, we find our hope in doing for one what we wish we could do for all. In doing for a group of middle school girls what we want the world to know about God's love. Those are extreme examples. But what about the everyday hookup culture that dominates our college campuses and music lyrics? What about the widespread belief that modern women enjoy casual sex or that they should enjoy it without attachment? Feminist Louise Perry recently wrote a follow-up book. to the case against the sexual revolution. In a new guide to sex in the 21st century,

she compiles years of research and comes to this conclusion. She writes, so the evidence doesn't suggest that today's young women are reveling in sexual liberation. Instead, it suggests that a lot of women are having unpleasant, crappy sex out of a sense of obligation. And to add insult to injury, this doesn't actually increase women's values. in the eyes of men. Here's my takeaway from the points above. We need to be actively helping women

in all walks of life, no matter what they need, without judgment. That's the first step. We need to be instilling worth and value into our daughters, nieces, our daughters' friends. We need to keep talking about pornography and how it degrades women. And we need to base all of this on a sexual ethic that is trustworthy. Not one that shifts with the tides of the 21st century, not one shaped by feminist culture or anyone else. We have a creator God who made all men and women in his image. In his image, he made them. And in his word, we find the truth about how to honor each other, even sexually, in a way that honors him. We have made our way to the end of judges. And I bring up these points because this was a tragic and detestable time in Israel's history. Bottom line, you read it,

and you have two choices. You can think, this is too awful. I can't trust a God who lets this happen. Or you can think, this is too awful. I yearn for the intervention of our God and Savior who sent his son to rescue us from ourselves. As we reached the final chapter of judges, we've witnessed a series of tragic and horrifying events. The root of these atrocities is revealed at the very beginning of judges from chapter 1. Israel failed to fully obey God's command to drive out the Canaanites.

Many commentaries classify the final three chapters of judges as an appendix, illustrating the depth of Israel's apostasy and the cultural consequences of their defiance against God. The first verse of chapter 19 and last verse in Judges 21 provide a haunting framework for these events.

Judges 191 introduces what is to come. In those days, when there was no king in Israel. And then Judges 21-25 concludes the book with an ominous refrain. In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And then between these two statements, we find a society unraveling in the absence of moral and spiritual leadership. A woman is treated as a mere object, valued less than a man.

by both her master and her father, a mindset influenced by the surrounding Canaanite culture, which Israel had failed to purge from their land. A civil war erupts between the 11 tribes of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin. Instead of uniting against the Canaanites, they turned their swords against each other, leading to horrific violence, slaughtering Benjaminites, raping and murdering women and children. And then as the book closes, Israel faces a grim question. What do we do with the surviving Benjamin's? How do we ensure the tribe does not vanish? And they answer, they devise an appalling plan.

Well, we will murder, rape, and abduct to secure wives for them. For reference, we're not talking about the Canaanites here. We're talking about God's chosen people. So how did we get here? One commentary explains, this is the problem with human solutions to what is essentially a spiritual problem. the humanly speaking and tractable problems are evil. There is no military campaign or state policy which can solve a problem that resides in and issues from the human heart. Only a revival of faith in God can do this. But Israel has never recognized that they are under oppression and slavery as if they had a foreign master.

They are spiritually in darkness and don't even realize it. These chapters are a picture of how societies not centered on God function, worshiping something other than the true God, deciding what seems right, logical, reasonable in their own eyes, wondering why things never seem to go much better, and then deciding that if God exists, he must not care for his people. So after judges, this is what I want my small group girls to hear. Don't let the Old Testament accounts of violence give you a reason to give up on our holy and loving God, who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. This story should stir us in a deep, desperation and longing for a better judge, a better savior, we should run into the arms of Jesus.

One of my favorite passages where God tells us who He is comes from the Old Testament. In Exodus, the Lord, the Lord passes before Moses and says, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. And if you know someone struggling with the entanglements of sexuality, pornography, or anything related, do not use the Bible as an excuse to give up on them. That is certainly not what Jesus taught and not what he did. In John 317, Jesus said,

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Judges just shows us that we need a better savior. So it just shows us that we need Jesus. And our lives show us the same things. We need to run into the arms of our rescuing Savior, Jesus Christ.