The Call of Gideon: Startling Leadership, Stunning Reversals (Judges 6:36-7:23)

Gideon provided startling leadership to the people of Yahweh during some of their darkest days. This startling leadership led to a stunning reversal of fortune. Before, the Midianites exercised impoverishing control of Israel. No one, Midianite or Israelite, could even imagine a change in this relationship. Yahweh, however, could. Soon enough, Israel stood triumphant over Midian.

The Call of Gideon: Unexpected Adventures (Judges 6:25-35)

In response to the suffering of his people, Yahweh spoke surprising words to Gideon. Yahweh called this weakest man of the weakest clan a “mighty warrior” (Judges 6:12). Yahweh then commissioned Gideon to deliver Israel from Midianite control (6:14). When Gideon understandably doubted his own ability to do so, Yahwe assured him, “I will be with you” (6:16). Their conversation ended when Gideon affirmed his call (6:22-24).

The Call of Gideon: Surprising Words (Judges 6:1-24)

In the Book of Judges, we read of how the people of Yahweh routinely abandoned Yahweh to worship the six false gods of Olympianity. Of course, once they did that, the Olympian gods and their minions made life difficult for Yahweh’s people. Yahweh’s people would then cry out to him for help. Mercifully enough, Yahweh would raise up a leader through whom he would free his people from their slavery.

Book of Judges: Strange Behavior Then and Now

1. In the time of the Judges

The Book of Judges records a time both sad and happy for the people of Yahweh. Sadly, from about 1400 to 1100 BC, Yahweh’s people settled into a destructive pattern of behavior in their relationship with Yahweh. They constantly rejected him and devoted themselves to the six false gods of Olympianity. Happily, Yahweh did not abandon them as their behavior deserved. Instead, he freed them from those gods and their oppressive minions over and over again.

TV News: The Lectionary of Olympianity

Television is the Bible of Olympianity in our day. Not only is it the normative source of our society’s shared beliefs, values, norms, and goals. Not only is it the normative structure of the Olympian personality that smolders darkly inside us all. It is also the source of the Grand Narrative: the master story through which we understand our world and in which we all have our place.

TV: The Bible of Olympianity

The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is our normative witness to Jesus Christ.
   
Jesus talks to us today. All he says to us today, however, is consistent with what he said to the prophets and apostles yesterday.
   
This means, of course, that to discern and affirm what Jesus is saying to us today, we need to read the Bible. Sadly, we Christians have largely abandoned it.

Witness to Jesus Becomes Morality

Jesus freed us human beings from religion. He freed us from the six false gods of power, from the Olympian worldview based on them, and from the sacred world expressing it. The writers of the New Testament all witness to this.

Gradually, however, their faithful witness to Jesus was subverted and became Christianity.

Not only that. Jesus freed us human beings from morality. Gradually, however, faithful witness to Jesus was subverted and became Christian morality.