I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Judges 4-6.

The story of Gideon in today’s passage contains a lot of things for us to learn from.  As a result, I generally write about that rather than about Deborah.  However, despite not containing as many inspirational points as the story of Gideon, the story of Deborah told here contains some very important things.  I love how the story of Deborah shows us that women can, and do, play just as critical of a role in God’s plans as men do.  In this story we have Jael.  Jael was called on to fill a critical role in this story because Barak was unwilling to lead the Israelite army against Sisera without Deborah there to hold his hand.  In fact, it seems likely that we may never have heard of either Jael or Deborah if Barak had been willing to assume a true leadership role when Deborah gave him God’s instructions.  That does not mean that Deborah would not have played an important role in that case.  What it means is that there are probably many other women who played a role similar to Deborah’s of whom we have never heard because the man she spoke to stepped up and fulfilled the leadership role for which God intended him.  I am sure there are also many men who filled a similar role to Deborah’s.  However, we are not as tempted to dismiss the role men play in important events.