Sept. 12, 2026
Breaking Badly 13: The Book of Judges
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Podcast Addict Welcome to Gospel Rant, and our new series, Breaking Badly!
Episode 13 — The Darkness Before the King (Finale)
We’ve reached the end of the book of Judges.
And it ends in one of the darkest stories in the entire Bible.
A story of violence.
Cowardice.
Sexual brutality.
And moral collapse.
The narrator frames the entire section with the same haunting line:
“In those days Israel had no king.”
And what follows shows exactly what that means.
We will see what you think.
And now, it’s your turn…
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We’d love your feedback: Bill@gospel-app.com
Thanks in advance—and enjoy the series!
Take heart, child of God.
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Transcript
00:00:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to Breaking Badly Episode thirteen, actually the final episode, the Darkness before the King. We've reached the end of the Book of Judges. You probably need to take a bath, or run to church or pray to God and go please forgive me. And it is I mean, I think it's I think the ending makes sense. It ends with one of the darkest stories in the entire Bible, a story of violence, cowardice, sexual brutality, moral collapse. The narrator frames the entire section with the same haunting line, In those days Israel had no King. Like I said, you could say, in those days, Israel had no God. And what follows shows exactly what that means. Welcome to a Gospel Rant podcast of doctor Bill Sinord YouTube channel. I'm your host, Doctor Bill Sinard. We're free wherever you get good podcasts, of course on YouTube as well, so please subscribe. One of the fastest ways you can help us grows is by leaving your comments below if you're on YouTube or Bill at gospeldesh app dot com. If you are watched listening to this at Gospel Rant, thanks sincerely ahead of time. Also thanks for making Gospel Rat podcast one of the top ten percent of the world. It's great right. Thanks for listening every week. We hope that it helps to regularly hear about God's love that loves the unlovable and loved the lovely, unworthy and unlikely. And that's all of us any given day, if we were just a little bit honest, I want to get right into it. After this brief word from our sponsors, we'll be right back. The story begins with unnamed characters. Quote. In those days Israel had no king. Now a Levite who lived in a remote area in the hill country of Ephrium took a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah, but she was unfaithful to him. She left him and went back to her father's house in Bethlehem Judah. After she had been there four months, her husband went to her to persuade her to return. He had with them his servant and two donkeys. She took him into her father's house, and when her father saw him, he gladly welcomed him. A Levite, a concubine, an old man, a mob, no names, just rules. This is intentional. The narrator is showing that something terrible has happened in Israel. People have become generic. Ephesians III. We learn from Paul that God gives names the meeting honor and wealth and worth and identity. But here at the end of Judges, people have no names. They're interchangeable. They're dehumanized. Because when God disappears from the center of a culture, sure human beings slowly lose their value as well. Look around. The Levie takes a concubine from Bethlehem, but the relationship breaks down. She leaves them, returns to her father's house four months past. Finally, the Levi travels to bring her back. Four months already we see a world where relationships are fragile, disposable, transactional. The Levited himself isn't living in a levitical city as the law required. Even the priesthood has drifted away from God's instructions. Hospitality fails. Nothing was considered more sacrosanct than hospitality in a tribal community. As they travel home, they decided not to stay in the pagan city of Jaybush. Instead, they travel to Gibea, an Israelite town. I mean, surely the people of God are going to show hospitality, right, But no one offers them any shelter God. Eventually, an elderly man takes them into his home, and then the nightmare begins. The mob men from the city surround the house. They demand that the leevite be brought out so they can abuse him. The host tries to stop them, but instead of protecting everyone in the house, he offers something horrifying, his own daughter and the levite's concupine. What two women offered as substitutes. Really, this is not merely misogyny. This is inhumanity at the highest, most indifferent and selfish levels. Supposed to protect the weak. The levite himself does not protest. Instead, he throws the woman outside. She is assaulted throughout the night and dies at the door. The next morning, the levite opens the door, he sees are lying there and says, only get up, let's go wow, heartlessness, indifference, in humanity, And there's no response. She's dead. The man who should have protected her treats her body as an object. He takes her home, cuts her body into twelve pieces, and sends them throughout Israel. It's a shocking act, mean to provoke outrage, and it works. For the first time. In judges, the tribes of Israel unite, not to go to Shiloh, to inquire of God, to plead for mercy, to repent godly sorrow. No revenge is sweeter than that, it's easier to that. It's it's a yeah, you know, revenge is revenge like this is innate to us. Four hundred thousand men gather. But notice I important. They're not outraged by their long history of idolatry. They're not outraged by abandoning God. They are outraged because their shame has been exposed, and instead of seeking God, they take justice into their own hands. Look, no judgment for me. How many times right on a daily basis? We do that modernly. So there's a corrupt trial, but it's nothing like the judicial process described in the Torah. They're making this stuff up. There's no investigation, no witnesses, no careful discernment. The Levi tells a carefully edited story that hides his own cowardice. He exaggerates the guilt of the city. Truth has lost all value, no God in the land, no King of the land, and Israel accepts his version without question, and the result is catastrophic. Israel wages war against the tribe of Benjamin, and nearly the entire tribe is destroyed. Only six hundred men survive. Ironically, the people of God finally accomplished what they had once been commanded to do against the pagan nations, but now they do it to their own brothers. The Book of Judges has come into full circle. The people meant to bring light to the nations now look exactly like them. And the book ends with the line one final time. In those days, Israel had no king, see the editor says the author. Editor says, everyone did what was right in his own eyes. This is not simply a political statement, it's a theological one. Israel had rejected God as their king, and without God at the center, everything falls apart. And I'm not talking about religion at the center. I'm not talking about just a law that says you learn the Ten Commandments in school. I'm talking about the embrace of God, where we run to God at the center and look at his face smiling upon us. That's what I mean relationship. And there in that midst is mercy and compassion and justice and truth, and that's where we find human dignity. And that's when we leave and begin to treat other people with human dignity, not just a law. Judges shows us something uncomfortable about the human heart, our midbrain. Left to ourselves, we naturally drift towards doing what is right in our own eyes. But that's not defined by God. That's to find by me. Sometimes we dress those choices up in religious language, we make it a denomination. Sometimes we call them wisdom or principles. But without this dependent relationship on God and accessing the favor of God is smile religion is hollow and actually will become dehumanize it. And this is why the story of Judges points forward forward to a king. And I'm not talking about Saul, not merely a human room, but the true king is real needed that I need one who had never abandoned God's will, one who would never treat people as disposable, one who would willingly give his life for others. Unlike the Levite in this story, Jesus would not sacrifice someone else to save himself. He would sacrifice himself to save others. You know, I can't tell you how often I hear, but all religions the same. No Jesus, Jesus and what he did and why he did it? What he accomplished is only one. Now you may say there's multiple paths, But if that's the case, why the world wouldn't you pick this one. It's just it lacks intellectual integrity. This is the one you need. But I would say this, this is the one that probably scares you the most. The other ones are easy. You don't have to change, you don't have to worry about being changed. Well, this is all why. The Book of Judges sets the stage for advent in a world just as broken as this one. A child is born, an angel appears to Mary and says, you have found favor with God, and to the Shepherd's glory, to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those who on whom his favor rests. The darkness of Judges is real, but it's not the end of the story, because God moves toward broken people, toward victims and perpetrators alike, offering mercy and justice and transformation. Final reflection, The message of Judges is not simply about ancient Israel. No, it's about me. It's about you. Same tendencies, the same self sufficiency, the same drift towards doing what is right in our own eyes, But The good news for us is this the King has come, and through him, even people like me and you, who break badly can be restored and loved and adored and delighted. In what's next. I will let you know after this brief word from our sponsors. Well good Enough Christian Book is out, a sequel to Good Enough Parents. Here's the back cover. I'll read it one more time. Why so many Christians feel stuck? And how to experience more? Are you a Christian who believes the Gospel but doesn't feel loved by God? You're not alone. If you've ever felt spiritually stuck. If you've quietly wondered why the abundant life Jesus promised feels out of reach. If you've sat in church hoping to feel loved, yet left unchanged. If you haven't felt that inner stirring for a long while, maybe you've already left church for well, you know lots of reasons. The patterns unmistakable. Sincere Christians who love Jesus but feel stalled in their faith, not rebellious, not apathetic, if they've somehow become a disappointment to God. With warmth, honesty, biblical depth, and disarming humor, The book invites readers into a shame free exploration of why so many believers struggle to experience the love of God, not just believe it intellectually. You'll discover why feeling spiritually underwhelmed is more common than you think, hypnopsticles that dull our experience of God's love, the role of the Holy Spirit in making Christ's love real, not theoretical, how your brain, background and church culture shape your faith experience a gentler, more grace saturated path forward. This is not a call to try harder. It's an invitation to experience more. If you've ever wanted to ask, without shame, what does the love of Jesus actually feel like? First of all, that's the right question. Second, this book was written for you. Welcome to good enough Christian Please check it out. It's short, you can read it in two sittings. It's cheap. Get copies for your church, your Bible, study, your book club, families around you, and they will thank you next time. By the way, we're going to start off at Ecclesiastes. Look, don't miss. This is not going to be the Ecclesiastes you thought you knew. We're gonna take a different direction, and I think I can show you just how relevant it is for today. Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us in the Breaking Badly series. Help us promote that, give it away to other people. It's online, YouTube, and podcast. The Book of Judges shows us what happens when God has pushed the margins like today, but it also prepares us for the arrival of a king who restored with humanity, but we could never fix on our own, and that king is Jesus. Well, we'll see you next time as we begin to go through Ecclesiastes. Take Heart, child of God.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Breaking Badly Episode thirteen, actually the final episode, the Darkness before the King. We've reached the end of the Book of Judges. You probably need to take a bath, or run to church or pray to God and go please forgive me. And it is I mean, I think it's I think the ending makes sense. It ends with one of the darkest stories in the entire Bible, a story of violence, cowardice, sexual brutality, moral collapse. The narrator frames the entire section with the same haunting line, In those days Israel had no King. Like I said, you could say, in those days, Israel had no God. And what follows shows exactly what that means. Welcome to a Gospel Rant podcast of doctor Bill Sinord YouTube channel. I'm your host, Doctor Bill Sinard. We're free wherever you get good podcasts, of course on YouTube as well, so please subscribe. One of the fastest ways you can help us grows is by leaving your comments below if you're on YouTube or Bill at gospeldesh app dot com. If you are watched listening to this at Gospel Rant, thanks sincerely ahead of time. Also thanks for making Gospel Rat podcast one of the top ten percent of the world. It's great right. Thanks for listening every week. We hope that it helps to regularly hear about God's love that loves the unlovable and loved the lovely, unworthy and unlikely. And that's all of us any given day, if we were just a little bit honest, I want to get right into it. After this brief word from our sponsors, we'll be right back. The story begins with unnamed characters. Quote. In those days Israel had no king. Now a Levite who lived in a remote area in the hill country of Ephrium took a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah, but she was unfaithful to him. She left him and went back to her father's house in Bethlehem Judah. After she had been there four months, her husband went to her to persuade her to return. He had with them his servant and two donkeys. She took him into her father's house, and when her father saw him, he gladly welcomed him. A Levite, a concubine, an old man, a mob, no names, just rules. This is intentional. The narrator is showing that something terrible has happened in Israel. People have become generic. Ephesians III. We learn from Paul that God gives names the meeting honor and wealth and worth and identity. But here at the end of Judges, people have no names. They're interchangeable. They're dehumanized. Because when God disappears from the center of a culture, sure human beings slowly lose their value as well. Look around. The Levie takes a concubine from Bethlehem, but the relationship breaks down. She leaves them, returns to her father's house four months past. Finally, the Levi travels to bring her back. Four months already we see a world where relationships are fragile, disposable, transactional. The Levited himself isn't living in a levitical city as the law required. Even the priesthood has drifted away from God's instructions. Hospitality fails. Nothing was considered more sacrosanct than hospitality in a tribal community. As they travel home, they decided not to stay in the pagan city of Jaybush. Instead, they travel to Gibea, an Israelite town. I mean, surely the people of God are going to show hospitality, right, But no one offers them any shelter God. Eventually, an elderly man takes them into his home, and then the nightmare begins. The mob men from the city surround the house. They demand that the leevite be brought out so they can abuse him. The host tries to stop them, but instead of protecting everyone in the house, he offers something horrifying, his own daughter and the levite's concupine. What two women offered as substitutes. Really, this is not merely misogyny. This is inhumanity at the highest, most indifferent and selfish levels. Supposed to protect the weak. The levite himself does not protest. Instead, he throws the woman outside. She is assaulted throughout the night and dies at the door. The next morning, the levite opens the door, he sees are lying there and says, only get up, let's go wow, heartlessness, indifference, in humanity, And there's no response. She's dead. The man who should have protected her treats her body as an object. He takes her home, cuts her body into twelve pieces, and sends them throughout Israel. It's a shocking act, mean to provoke outrage, and it works. For the first time. In judges, the tribes of Israel unite, not to go to Shiloh, to inquire of God, to plead for mercy, to repent godly sorrow. No revenge is sweeter than that, it's easier to that. It's it's a yeah, you know, revenge is revenge like this is innate to us. Four hundred thousand men gather. But notice I important. They're not outraged by their long history of idolatry. They're not outraged by abandoning God. They are outraged because their shame has been exposed, and instead of seeking God, they take justice into their own hands. Look, no judgment for me. How many times right on a daily basis? We do that modernly. So there's a corrupt trial, but it's nothing like the judicial process described in the Torah. They're making this stuff up. There's no investigation, no witnesses, no careful discernment. The Levi tells a carefully edited story that hides his own cowardice. He exaggerates the guilt of the city. Truth has lost all value, no God in the land, no King of the land, and Israel accepts his version without question, and the result is catastrophic. Israel wages war against the tribe of Benjamin, and nearly the entire tribe is destroyed. Only six hundred men survive. Ironically, the people of God finally accomplished what they had once been commanded to do against the pagan nations, but now they do it to their own brothers. The Book of Judges has come into full circle. The people meant to bring light to the nations now look exactly like them. And the book ends with the line one final time. In those days, Israel had no king, see the editor says the author. Editor says, everyone did what was right in his own eyes. This is not simply a political statement, it's a theological one. Israel had rejected God as their king, and without God at the center, everything falls apart. And I'm not talking about religion at the center. I'm not talking about just a law that says you learn the Ten Commandments in school. I'm talking about the embrace of God, where we run to God at the center and look at his face smiling upon us. That's what I mean relationship. And there in that midst is mercy and compassion and justice and truth, and that's where we find human dignity. And that's when we leave and begin to treat other people with human dignity, not just a law. Judges shows us something uncomfortable about the human heart, our midbrain. Left to ourselves, we naturally drift towards doing what is right in our own eyes. But that's not defined by God. That's to find by me. Sometimes we dress those choices up in religious language, we make it a denomination. Sometimes we call them wisdom or principles. But without this dependent relationship on God and accessing the favor of God is smile religion is hollow and actually will become dehumanize it. And this is why the story of Judges points forward forward to a king. And I'm not talking about Saul, not merely a human room, but the true king is real needed that I need one who had never abandoned God's will, one who would never treat people as disposable, one who would willingly give his life for others. Unlike the Levite in this story, Jesus would not sacrifice someone else to save himself. He would sacrifice himself to save others. You know, I can't tell you how often I hear, but all religions the same. No Jesus, Jesus and what he did and why he did it? What he accomplished is only one. Now you may say there's multiple paths, But if that's the case, why the world wouldn't you pick this one. It's just it lacks intellectual integrity. This is the one you need. But I would say this, this is the one that probably scares you the most. The other ones are easy. You don't have to change, you don't have to worry about being changed. Well, this is all why. The Book of Judges sets the stage for advent in a world just as broken as this one. A child is born, an angel appears to Mary and says, you have found favor with God, and to the Shepherd's glory, to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those who on whom his favor rests. The darkness of Judges is real, but it's not the end of the story, because God moves toward broken people, toward victims and perpetrators alike, offering mercy and justice and transformation. Final reflection, The message of Judges is not simply about ancient Israel. No, it's about me. It's about you. Same tendencies, the same self sufficiency, the same drift towards doing what is right in our own eyes, But The good news for us is this the King has come, and through him, even people like me and you, who break badly can be restored and loved and adored and delighted. In what's next. I will let you know after this brief word from our sponsors. Well good Enough Christian Book is out, a sequel to Good Enough Parents. Here's the back cover. I'll read it one more time. Why so many Christians feel stuck? And how to experience more? Are you a Christian who believes the Gospel but doesn't feel loved by God? You're not alone. If you've ever felt spiritually stuck. If you've quietly wondered why the abundant life Jesus promised feels out of reach. If you've sat in church hoping to feel loved, yet left unchanged. If you haven't felt that inner stirring for a long while, maybe you've already left church for well, you know lots of reasons. The patterns unmistakable. Sincere Christians who love Jesus but feel stalled in their faith, not rebellious, not apathetic, if they've somehow become a disappointment to God. With warmth, honesty, biblical depth, and disarming humor, The book invites readers into a shame free exploration of why so many believers struggle to experience the love of God, not just believe it intellectually. You'll discover why feeling spiritually underwhelmed is more common than you think, hypnopsticles that dull our experience of God's love, the role of the Holy Spirit in making Christ's love real, not theoretical, how your brain, background and church culture shape your faith experience a gentler, more grace saturated path forward. This is not a call to try harder. It's an invitation to experience more. If you've ever wanted to ask, without shame, what does the love of Jesus actually feel like? First of all, that's the right question. Second, this book was written for you. Welcome to good enough Christian Please check it out. It's short, you can read it in two sittings. It's cheap. Get copies for your church, your Bible, study, your book club, families around you, and they will thank you next time. By the way, we're going to start off at Ecclesiastes. Look, don't miss. This is not going to be the Ecclesiastes you thought you knew. We're gonna take a different direction, and I think I can show you just how relevant it is for today. Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us in the Breaking Badly series. Help us promote that, give it away to other people. It's online, YouTube, and podcast. The Book of Judges shows us what happens when God has pushed the margins like today, but it also prepares us for the arrival of a king who restored with humanity, but we could never fix on our own, and that king is Jesus. Well, we'll see you next time as we begin to go through Ecclesiastes. Take Heart, child of God.
