Right in Our Own Eyes
“Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Judges 17:6
On the surface, this could sound like everyone was following their own conscious, doing what seemed right to them. However the context is not positive but negative. It means people did whatever they wanted to do without regard for God’s Law or authority because there was no authority, “in those days there was no king.” This verse falls within a story about a man who created a shrine out of a silver idol and began worshiping it, even hiring his own personal priest (a Levite who willingly participated), thinking somehow God would bless him, even though he was directly violating God’s Law. It’s interesting how quickly, doing right in their own eyes, caused them to ignore God and worship other things, while still expecting God to bring his blessings. As I reread this I am reminded of how this connects with the logical outcome of post-modernism in our own day and time. If we believe there is no absolute truth, no absolute right or wrong, that it is all relative to ones perspective, then eventually it will lead to everyone doing what is right in their own eyes, rather than what is right in God’s eyes. This will, like the people in the time of the Judges, turn one away from God and lead to idolatry of ourselves (self-centeredness, pursuit of pleasure, greed, materialism), or idolatry (worship of other things or people), which will eventually destroy us, just as every culture in the world eventually experiences (as is well documented of the seemingly indestructible Roman Empire in the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire).
What really guides our behavior? Is it what is right in our own eyes, or God’s eyes?