| Church School Lesson: Religious But Not Righteous |
"Religious But Not Righteous"
October 25, 2026
Background: Judges 17-18; Print: Judges 17:1-6; 18:18-19, 27;
Key Verse: Judges 17:6; Devotional: Deuteronomy 6:10-16
Judges 17:1-6 (ESV)
1 There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah.
2 And he said to his mother, “The 1,100 pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse, and also spoke it in my ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it.” And his mother said, “Blessed be my son by the LORD.”
3 And he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, “I dedicate the silver to the LORD from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a metal image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.”
4 So when he restored the money to his mother, his mother took 200 pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith, who made it into a carved image and a metal image. And it was in the house of Micah.
5 And the man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and household gods, and ordained one of his sons, who became his priest.
6 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Judges 18:18-19 (ESV)
18 And when these went into Micah’s house and took the carved image, the ephod, the household gods, and the metal image, the priest said to them, “What are you doing?”
19 And they said to him, “Keep quiet; put your hand on your mouth and come with us and be to us a father and a priest. Is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and clan in Israel?”
Judges 18:27 (ESV)
27 But the people of Dan took what Micah had made, and the priest who belonged to him, and they came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city with fire.
Judges Chapters 17 & 18 (Commentary)
17:1-3 The first thing we learn about the Ephraimite named Micah is that he stole from his own mother. She had 1,100 pieces of silver (that’s about twenty-eight pounds!), and Micah helped himself to it. Only when he heard her curse the silver so that it would fail to be an advantage to whoever stole it, did he return her money (17:1-2). (So not only was he a thief, but he was superstitious too.) At his admission, his mother blessed him and said, I personally consecrate the silver to the Lord for my son’s benefit to make . . . a silver idol (17:2-3).
Clearly, we have problems here. She dedicated the silver to the Lord for the express purpose of making an idol. But the Lord had commanded Israel, “Do not make an idol for yourself” (Exod 20:4). That kind of blatant double-mindedness is just what we would expect to develop in a culture that tries to blend the worship of the true God with the world’s pagan ways. The Lord demands whole-hearted devotion.
17:4 The woman took five pounds of silver and gave it to a silversmith. Don’t miss that little detail. While she’d promised the whole twenty-eight pounds would be used in the idol’s manufacture, she only gave up part of it. Micah probably learned how to steal from her.
17:5-6 Once the idol was in his house, Micah used both an ephod to determine God’s will and household idols to determine the pagan gods’ preferences. Then he made one of his own sons to be his personal priest (17:5). Micah was from the tribe of Ephraim, and only Levites could be priests. Thus, this was a further flagrant disregard for God’s commands.
It’s not surprising that the author of Judges says, In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever seemed right to him (17:6). The people had completely forgotten that the Lord was to be their King. So there was no divine standard operating in Israel. Everyone followed his own standard, his own god.
18:15-19 The Danites took the carved image, the ephod, the household idols, and the silver idol (18:17). Concerned, the priest asked, What are you doing? (18:18). But the Danites answered, Keep your mouth shut. Come with us. . . . Is it better for you to be a priest for the house of one person or for you to be a priest for a tribe and family in Israel? (18:19).
Taking Micah’s gods with them, the Danite army continued to Laish and killed a quiet and unsuspecting people (18:27).