Today, I am reading and commenting on  Judges 7-8.

When Israel’s enemies mustered their army to raid Israel once more, Gideon summoned the warriors of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulon, and Naphtali.  However, the army which answered Gideon’s summons was too large for God’s purpose.  So, God instructed Gideon to reduce his army, from 32,00 to 300.  Here is the important lesson we can take from the story of Gideon’s victory over the Midianites.  When God sends us on a mission, we can’t accomplish it on our own.  In fact, God wants us to go into it knowing that we will only succeed because of Him.  If we go into it thinking that we can pull it off with the resources we have gathered, we aren’t doing it right.  When we go into something to which God has called us, we have to know that we will only succeed because God ordained our victory.

There is a second lesson in this passage as well.  After his initial defeat of the oppressing army, Gideon summoned the warriors he had originally dismissed, plus the warriors of the tribe of Ephraim.  He asked the tribe of Ephraim to hold the crossing points of the Jordan so that the bulk of the enemy army could not escape.  They were successful, but resented that Gideon had not summoned them when he first gathered troops for battle.  However, Gideon did not give them attitude back.  Instead he praised their accomplishments.  He could have claimed credit for what they did, since, after all, what they accomplished was only possible because of what he had done first.  However, Gideon recognized that the glory was neither his, nor theirs, but rather the glory belonged to God.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Judges 7-8.

I want to write about Gideon’s faith.  A week or two back it was pointed out to me that our failure today to see signs and wonders similar to those written about in the New Testament is not because our faith is too small.  My initial response to that was to think, “Well yes, but…”  Then I read today’s passage.  To fully understand what the meaning it conveyed to me we need to take a look at something from yesterday’s passage which I did not write about yesterday.  In yesterday’s passage, God had called Gideon to lead the Israelites against the overwhelming force of the Midianites.  Gideon asked for God to give him a sign that he had been interpreted God’s leading correctly, and from that sign we get the expression of “asking for a fleece.”  Gideon got the answer for which he had asked.  In fact God gave him an answer twice.  Then, when the time came to attack, God told him to do so, but God also said, “If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp and listen.” That is a paraphrase and there was a bit more to it than that, but the account tells us that Gideon did go down and listen.  Now, why did Gideon go down and listen?  Because he was afraid.  Think about that.  Gideon had laid down a fleece at night, asking God for it to be wet from dew in the morning while the ground around it was dry.  In the morning, the ground was dry and Gideon squeezed a bowlful of water out of the fleece.  Then Gideon asked God to do the opposite the following night, and the morning after the fleece was dry while the ground around it was wet from dew.  Yet, when it came time to do as God commanded, Gideon was still afraid.  Here’s the important part, God didn’t leave Gideon hanging, He knew Gideon was afraid and provided him with a sign to strengthen his courage.

We see from this that God did not use Gideon to save the Israelites from the Midianites because of his great faith, because Gideon did not have great faith.  In the same way, we do not need great faith to accomplish God’s purpose, we just need to be willing to do what God tells us to do.  When we start doing what God tells us to do, He will provide us with evidence that we are doing the right thing.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Judges 7-8.

We normally read this passage as representing Gideon’s first, and essentially only, battle against the Midianites.  However, when I read this passage where it talks about Gideon spying on the Midianite camp I realized that he had clearly already developed a reputation among the Midianites.  This lends even more significance to God’s instruction to Gideon that his army was too large.  Gideon clearly had won numerous smaller battles against the Midianites, such that he had a reputation among the Midianites.  We need to recognize that Gideon did not just defeat the Midianites in a few days, or even just a few months.  His campaign against them likely went on for several years before God gave him his great victory.  We need to remember that bringing about positive change does not happen overnight.

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

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 7-8.

The story of Gideon making an ephod from the gold earrings taken from the defeated Midianites has always bothered me.  Gideon made it right after defeating the Midianites.  He had unified the Israelites against the Midianites by calling for a rejection of idolatry.  Yet, here he is making an object which he should have been aware would become an object of worship.  And, sure enough, the writer tells us that the Israelites began to worship the ephod Gideon made.  Not only that the writer tells us that it became a trap for Gideon and his family.  We do not know if they worshiped the ephod, or merely took advantage of the desire of other Israelites to worship it.  In either case, it set the stage for what happened after Gideon died, both the turning back to worshiping Baal and the account in tomorrow’s passage.