Have you ever thought well of someone only to find out that they really were not who you thought they were? Maybe you thought that they were honest, but they lied or stole from you? Have you ever been deceived in a big way?
What jumps out at you in this story?
And the man Micah had an house of gods, and made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest. In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And there was a young man out of Bethlehemjudah of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there. And the man departed out of the city from Bethlehemjudah to sojourn where he could find a place: and he came to mount Ephraim to the house of Micah, as he journeyed. And Micah said unto him, Whence comest thou? And he said unto him, I am a Levite of Bethlehemjudah, and I go to sojourn where I may find a place. And Micah said unto him, Dwell with me, and be unto me a father and a priest, and I will give thee ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel, and thy victuals. So the Levite went in.
Judges 17:5-10
When we get into Judges 18, we read how Micah still had those images.
What jumps out at me is the Levite. I had put Levites on a pedestal in my mind. What I mean is that I had stereotyped them. In my mind, if they were Levites they were serving the Lord as priests. This one was obviously not serving the Lord. He obviously had no problem with the graven images.
Don’t we tend to do that today? Don’t we tend to think that if someone is a pastor, they must be teaching the truth? We may think that if they went to a certain school that they are surely teaching what we think we know that school to be about.
Be careful that you don’t pass the school’s reputation or the profession’s reputation along to the man.
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
1 John 4:1
False prophets are not new. They existed way back in the Old Testament, and they still exist today. Try the spirit of those you sit under. Make sure they are teaching the Word – the complete Word – of God. Follow along in scripture, and check it for yourself.
LIFE APPLICATION
Today’s challenge is to check your assumptions. What assumptions have you made where people are concerned? Do you assume that just because someone is a pastor that they are teaching the truth? What about your teachers? Do you follow those folks along in the Bible to see that what they are saying matches scripture? Just because you agree with what you are hearing does not make it scriptural. Likewise, just because you don’t agree doesn’t mean that it is not. Open your Bible. That’s the only way you will know for sure.