In Judges 11:34-40 and 12:1-15 we see the dangers of being spiritually ignorant as these two give us four stories that depict this. The first three stories center around Jephthah who had great zeal for God risking his own life to save others, yet such zeal was no guarantee that he wouldn’t fall into spiritual ignorance with regards to the character of God. In Daniel 11:32 we read that “people who know their God shall be strong and carry out great exploits.” True but people who are ignorant of God’s character will do stupid things and destroy lives. God transformed Jephthah into a “mighty man of valor” because the “Spirit of the Lord came upon him” but such transformation doesn’t secure that a person will not fall back into poor decisions. We must not see our transformation as a once for all growth instead of a continual process degree by degree over the rest of our earthly existence.
