Judges 6 - Unlikely Hall of Famer

Hebrews 11 could be called the “Faith Hall of Fame.” This chapter lists person after person who trusted God and saw Him do BIG things as a result. It talks about Noah, Abraham, Moses, Rahab (who you’ll remember we talked about some months ago), and a whole bunch of others.

But towards the end of this chapter, it’s like the writer of Hebrews ran out of room on the page. Suddenly, he’s like, “What more can I say? I don’t have time to talk about all the others…” and then he just names a whole bunch of other big examples of faith. But one name has always stuck out to me. Up there with David and Samuel and Samson, this one guy isn’t someone I would have put in the Faith Hall of Fame.

Gideon. Gideon was one of Israel’s judges, one of those special leaders God chose before the Israelites had kings. The Israelites kept disobeying God and worshiping idols, so God removed His protection and let some other nation take over Israel. It would take a while, but eventually the Israelites would realize their mistake, and then God would raise up a judge to lead the Israelites in battle and kick out that other nation. The judge would rule for a while, but then the Israelites would start to disobey again, and the whole thing would start over.

Now Gideon’s story starts in Judges 6, where the Israelites have once again started worshipping other gods and are now under the control of the Midianites. The Midianites were very cruel rulers. Every year, they would destroy all of the Israelite farms and animals they could find. Without these, the Israelites would have to survive on very little food each year. They even took to hiding in caves, hoping the Midianites wouldn’t find them there.

You can imagine how hopeless this made them feel. How were they supposed to survive if their crops and cattle were destroyed every year? How could they protect their families if they had no food and had to hide in caves?

This is the scene when we meet Gideon. Like the rest of the Israelites, he would have been feeling pretty hopeless. He probably started to wonder if all those stories he had heard about God protecting the Israelites in the past had been just that: stories. He may have started doubting God, and maybe didn’t even believe in Him anymore.

But that was all going to change. One day, Gideon was hiding at a winepress, a place where they squish the grapes to make wine. But instead of squishing grapes, Gideon was threshing wheat, trying to get some kind of food for him and his family. But as he’s sitting there, threshing away, somebody walks in. This guy doesn’t say “Hi” or “How you doing?” All he says is, “Mighty warrior, the LORD is with you” (Judges 6:12, NIrV).

“Pardon me, sir,” Gideon replied, and you could almost hear his voice dripping in sarcasm, “you say the LORD is with us, but then why is all this awful stuff happening? Where are all those wonderful things, all those saving miracles that God did all those years ago? If you ask me, God has deserted us.”

Gideon was angry. He was seeing his people – his family – starve! He couldn’t understand why God would allow that. But Gideon didn’t realize who he was talking to. He probably thought this guy worked at the winepress, but actually he wasn’t a man at all. He was an angel, and God had sent this angel to begin one of those “saving miracles” Gideon was complaining for. But little did Gideon know that this saving miracle would start with him.

“You are strong,” the angel said back to Gideon. “Go and save Israel from the power of Midian.”

For the first time, Gideon properly looked at this stranger. He looked him up and down, head to toe, but then turned back to threshing his grain. “That’s a good joke. Me, save Israel? Out of all the tribes of Israel, mine’s the weakest, and I’m not even anyone important in my family!”

But then the angel said something that caught Gideon off guard. “I will be with you. Go, and fight the Midianites.”

Now you would think this statement wouldn’t mean much, especially coming from a stranger. Gideon still hadn’t clued in that he was talking to an angel. After all, usually when people meet with angels in the Bible, they fall on their face in fear. But the words “I will be with you” finally twigged Gideon that something unusual was going on.

We already know Gideon had heard the stories of God’s miracles from the past. He probably grew up on the stories of Noah and Abraham and Moses. And that line “I will be with you is important in a lot of these stories.

Take Exodus 3 for example. While Moses was a shepherd out in the wilderness, he came across a bush one day that was on fire but wouldn’t burn up. God was in this bush, and He spoke to Moses from it. He called Moses to go back to Egypt to set His people free from their slavery. Moses freaked out, a lot like Gideon did, saying that he was nobody and wondering why anyone would listen to him. But God answered Moses the same way He answered Gideon: “I will be with you.”

Hearing those words would have made Gideon take what was going on here seriously. He hadn’t figured out he was talking to an angel yet, but he probably figured this guy was a messenger from God.

But Gideon wasn’t 100% convinced yet. So he said, “If you really are pleased with me, then give me a sign. Let me bring an offering to you and set it before you.”

And all the angel said in return was, “I will wait.”

So off Gideon ran and started preparing some soup and bread. We can only imagine what was running through his head the entire time. This can’t be real. I’m no hero in a story. I’m just a guy trying to watch out for my family! For all I know, this guy’s just a madman. But what if… what if this is really is from God?

When Gideon came back, the angel told him to put the soup and bread on a rock. Then the angel touched them with the tip of his staff. Instantly, fire blazed out of the rock. Not the staff. Fire didn’t come from heaven to burn up the offering. The rock itself caught on fire to show that God had accepted this offering.

Just as instantly, Gideon fell on his face. He was terrified, probably thinking God was going to kill him, or at least be really angry with him because he had doubted. But that isn’t our God. Through the angel, God spoke to Gideon, saying, “Don’t be afraid. You aren’t going to die!”

Then the angel gave Gideon some instructions. There was an altar and a tall pole in the middle of the village that the Israelites had been using to worship some false gods. God told Gideon to tear them down. And Gideon, scared out of his mind but with the tiniest bit of belief that God was with him, did exactly that.

Well, maybe not exactly that. Instead of ripping down those idols right then and there, Gideon waited until that night when everybody was asleep. He was afraid the people would be angry and try to stop him, so he waited.

We don’t know what would have happened if Gideon had acted the moment God spoke to him, but I think we can safely say God would have protected Gideon. In fact, if he had acted then, Gideon might have started the war with the Midianites right then and there. But Gideon still had his doubts and was afraid. He knew God had commanded him to take down the altars, and he would do what God asked him to do, but he probably hoped this would be the end of it. He had done his part to get rid of the Midianite gods in his town – now God could ask someone else to overthrow the Midianites completely.

Of course, God had more plans for Gideon, which we’ll hear about in the next few weeks, but Gideon’s story has already taught us something important. Faith isn’t necessarily fearlessness. Just because we have faith in God doesn’t mean that we will walk through life totally unafraid when God asks us to do His work.

No, faith doesn’t mean fearlessness. But faith is believing despite our fear. It can be nerve-wracking to talk to our friends at school about Jesus. And if we look at all those people in the Faith Hall of Fame, almost all of them were afraid or uncertain at some point about what God had asked them to do.

But faith is all about being willing to trust Jesus and acting based on what He’s told us to do, knowing that He is with us and will be the strength in us as we do His work.

Some might call Gideon a coward, and we’ll see next time just how much it took to convince Gideon to have faith. But the important thing is that, when all was said and done, Gideon did have faith, however small, and enough faith to trust the God would help him accomplish what He had called him to. And for that, Gideon has earned his place in the Faith Hall of Fame.

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I hope you all enjoyed that. Gideon’s story is probably my favourite in the Bible, and I figured there was no better place to kick off my return to these stories than with his. It’ll be a few weeks before Part 2, but I hope you’ll come back then to check it out. We got some fleece and fights to talk about. Believe me, this is when his story gets good!

~Brentagious

SSS: I'm Back, or Why Common Courtesy?

Hey there all you out in Internet land. Hopefully a bunch of you will have stuck with me after my absence. I’ll get into the details at the end of the changes coming to this platform in the days ahead, but for now, I want to jump into a topic that’s been on my mind for a while.

This idea came to me a couple weeks back coming home from work (you know, that job that made me put this blog on the sidelines for a while). I was walking up the street towards the subway when I saw someone drop a slip of paper. I have no idea what it said or whether it was important. The person who dropped it didn’t notice it and started to walk away.

For the next three seconds, my mind kicked into overdrive. Do I call after her and let her know she dropped something? What if there’s nothing important on it? But what if it’s some important phone number for work? Or maybe a receipt? Would she thank me for calling after her or laugh it off because she was littering?

She kept walking. So did I. I didn’t say anything, and I’m still thinking about it 3 weeks later. Why? I’m not really sure. I guess I’m trying to figure out if I did something “wrong.”

Those of you who have grown up in a city like me, especially a big city like Toronto, will know that people don’t talk to each other on the streets. Or in elevators. Or on the subway or the bus. We’re a very antisocial group, city folk. People who approach you with a friendly attitude in a city are almost always trying to sell you something or get you to sign up for something. So we don’t talk to each other.

And honestly, it makes me kind of sad. I was in a small town for a wedding yesterday and not only did random strangers say hello to me, but they complimented me on my fancy attire. And if Hallmark movies are anything to go by, then small towns are filled with kind people who help old ladies across the street, carry bags for people who need help, or check off a whole bunch of other small town/boy scout clichés. But we’re talking about the big city, with the stereotype of heartless and uncaring, keep-your-nose-to-the-ground-and-no-one-will-bother-you, attitudes.

Why didn’t I just tell that woman she had dropped her paper?

I don’t actually see anyone with these anymore, but I remember the fad where everyone had WWJD bracelets and bookmarks. “What would Jesus do?” What that really means is an entire other post for another day, but what does that look like in the context of common courtesy?

Well, let’s start with the Old Testament. There are plenty of laws in Leviticus that cover how we are supposed to act towards our neighbours. Leviticus 23:22 commands not harvesting the edges of your fields and not going over your fields twice so that the poor and foreigners would have somewhere to collect food. In today’s context, maybe that means sharing half the sandwich you’re eating with the homeless man or woman on the street corner as you run to work.

Or what about the Sermon on the Mount? Jesus says there that we are to turn the other cheek towards those who try to harm us, and that we’re supposed to love both our neighbours and our enemies (who, He says in the parable of the Good Samaritan, are basically the same group).

Jesus Himself spent lots of time with the down and out. He ate with sinners and tax collectors to the befuddlement of the religious leaders of His day. He defended those who couldn’t defend themselves, like the adulterous woman who was about to be stoned until Jesus pointed out all of her accusers had sins in their lives too. He also spoke to the outcasts, like the Samaritan woman with five previous husbands who had to go to the well in the heat of the day to avoid all the looks and gossip. And of course, Jesus died on the cross and rose again so that all of us, separated from Him because of sin, could be brought back into relationship with Him.

But there are no stories in the Bible of Jesus tapping someone on the shoulder and saying, “Excuse me, ma’am, but I think you dropped your receipt from the bread shop.” The Good Samaritan stopped to help a beat up man when no one else would, but Jesus never talked about a Samaritan who said hello to his neighbour on the street.

Would Jesus have stopped the woman and told her she dropped her paper?

I can only speculate. After all, we don’t have an exact account of everything Jesus would have done in every possible circumstance. But from what we do see of His character in the Bible, I think He would.

Kindness and compassion are Jesus’ MO. Sure, He got angry when people treated the temple like a market, and He told the Pharisees off a few times for completely missing the point of what they believed, but every interaction Jesus has with people reveals how the kingdom of God is all about renewing a fallen creation. Whether He was healing the sick, feeding a crowd, or teaching from a hilltop, Jesus wanted people to realize there was something wrong with the world and He was the solution. Sometimes He renewed creation by physically healing an infirmity, while other times He spoke truth and corrected wrong understandings so that people would know He was the only way to find safety, security, and salvation in this world.

Jesus didn’t care about public opinion. It’s why the Jewish leaders hated Him so much. Jesus taught with authority about what was true rather than sticking to the orthodox Judaism of the day that had replaced mercy with legalism. He did His Father’s work and only His Father’s work.

In contrast, I am the only reason I didn’t tell that woman she had dropped her paper. Me. There was no one saying it was a stupid idea. There were no angels or demons on my shoulders whispering about right and wrongs. I rejected common courtesy because I was too caught up in the city attitude where we don’t talk to people. I convinced myself that people would think mentioning the paper was stupid, so I didn’t do it.

I’m reminded of the story in Luke 8 where a woman is healed after touching the edge of Jesus’ cloak. Jesus had been pushing through the crowds, unaware that there was a woman near Him who desperately wanted and needed healing, but the second she had been healed, Jesus stopped in His tracks to look for her.

The disciples thought He was crazy. After denying it was him or any of the other disciples, Peter says, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against You.” In other words, “Jesus, there are hundreds of people touching You. They do it all the time. What’s the big deal? Can we just get moving, please?”

But Jesus was insistent. And when this woman realized she couldn’t go unnoticed, she revealed herself. And as she told her story, I can only assume Jesus smiled as He responded, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

Jesus didn’t stop to help this woman. He didn’t look at her and say, “You, over there, come here and let me heal you.” You could easily read this to say Jesus would bypass someone who didn’t ask for His help.

But notice how insistent He is to figure out what happened as soon as He realized there was a need. He stopped everything to find this woman.

Would Jesus have stopped the woman to tell her she had dropped her paper? I don’t know. I want to say yes, but I don’t know. But what I do know is this: As Christians, we have the Holy Spirit living in and through us. He places desires on our hearts and prods us to do things we would never normally do. And as the Holy Spirit transforms us more into the likeness of Christ, I believe we will find ourselves leaning more towards common courtesy. Not because telling someone they dropped a paper is necessarily right or wrong but because it is a kindness, one of the fruits the Spirit will produce in us as we follow Jesus.

Uprooting that city mentality won’t be easy. I still don’t really like to talk to people downtown, though working at a bookstore where I have to talk to random strangers is helping with that. But the next time I see a stranger drop a paper or their books or need help with some little act, I hope I’ll remember this to stop and help out. It’s only common courtesy, after all.

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Now for the boring stuff. If you don’t care about the scheduling, thanks for reading and see you next time. But for the rest of you…

Weekly posting just isn’t feasible for me anymore. I want to want to do this, and I have too many other writing projects to commit to writing a post a week. Instead, I’m going to loosely commit to two posts a month. By loosely, I mean if it’s only one, or if a post doesn’t come exactly when it’s supposed to, please don’t send me hate mail.

The goal is to post on the second and fourth Sundays of every month. That’s right, no more Thursdays. The Second Sunday Switch-Ups will now be bi-monthly. This means that after today, the next SSS will be the second Sunday of December, then February, then April, and so on.

The remaining posts will be the stories, the whole purpose behind this blog. I’m hoping to shorten them. 2000+ words a week was getting tough to write and, frankly put, long to read. The goal was originally 1500, and I’m hoping to get back down to that. But indulge me if I get long winded (I tend to do that, if you haven’t noticed).

Once again, I’m grateful for all of you who started this journey with me and are willing to continue now that I’m back. I’m excited to try my hand at these again and remind myself what shedding our Sunday school glasses is all about.

Can’t wait to see what’s in store!

~Brentagious