Written by Miles V. Van Pelt |
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Gideon’s questions in Judges 6:13 set the stage for the Lord’s deliverance of Israel: “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’” In the tradition of the exodus, the Lord raises up a new Moses figure in Gideon and delivers his people from the hand of the enemy yet again. 

Then Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, 37behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.” 38And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water. 39Then Gideon said to God, “Let not your anger burn against me; let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew.” 40And God did so that night; and it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew.Judges 6:36–40
Gideon’s Calling
Judges 6:11–24 records Gideon’s call to serve as Israel’s next judge. The angel of the Lord has arrived to call and commission Gideon to serve as the instrument through which the Lord will deliver his people from the Midianites. Gideon is identified by his father and clan from the tribe of Manasseh. The scene is the terebinth at Ophrah. A terebinth is a large tree, perhaps an oak. There Gideon is beating out wheat in a winepress in order to hide from the Midianites. The translation “to hide it” could also be rendered “to flee.” Gideon has fled in order to hide the wheat and himself from the Midianites.
As the account unfolds, it becomes clear that the calling of Gideon follows the pattern of the calling of Moses in Exodus 3. Just as the Lord saved Israel in Judges 4–5 in the pattern and likeness of the exodus and the crossing of the Red Sea, so now will he raise up Gideon in the pattern and likeness of the calling of Moses.
The Calls of Moses and Gideon
1. Reference to Midian (Moses—Ex. 3:1; Gideon—Judg. 6:11)2. Angel of the Lord Appears (Moses—Ex. 3:2; Gideon—Judg. 6:11–12)3. Promise of Divine Presence (Moses—Ex. 3:12; Gideon—Judg. 6:12, 16)4. Deliverance from Egypt (Moses—Ex. 3:7–8; Gideon—Judg. 6:13)5. Objection of the Person Called (Moses—Ex. 3:11; Gideon—Judg. 6:15)6. Commission to Deliver (Moses—Ex. 3:10; Gideon—Judg. 6:16)7. Confirming Sign (Moses—Ex. 3:12; Gideon—Judg. 6:17)
In verse 11 the angel of the Lord was described as sitting under the terebinth tree, perhaps watching Gideon from a distance. Now the angel manifests himself to Gideon and speaks with him. His opening speech comprises two parts. First he confirms the divine presence: “The Lord is with you.” This statement accords with the nature of the office of judge as described in Judges 2:18: “Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge.” Second, the angel delivers what is typically treated as a vocative expression describing Gideon: “O mighty man of valor.” It is perhaps better, however, to understand the second portion of this speech as an adverbial modifier, describing the manner in which the Lord has presented himself to Gideon. In other words, when the angel of the Lord appears to Gideon, he does so as a man of war ready to deliver Israel (cf. Josh. 5:13–15).
This interpretation is to be preferred for at least three reasons. First, in the previous verse Gideon is described as hiding from the Midianite army—not the activity of a mighty warrior. Second, in the accounts of deliverance recorded in Judges it is the Lord who gives the enemy into the hand of the judge and goes out to lead in battle as the divine warrior (e.g., Judg. 4:14–15; 5:4–5, 20–23). Third, the defeat of the Midianites in chapter 7 is achieved by the Lord alone in the presence of three hundred Israelites who never raise a sword (Judg. 7:22), so that Israel could not boast by saying, “My own hand has saved me” (Judg. 7:2).
Gideon answers the angel of the Lord by asking about the reality of the divine presence. “And Gideon said to him, ‘Please, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.’” (Judg. 6:13). The Lord responds simply by commissioning Gideon. The author now refers to the angel of the Lord as Yahweh himself when he turns to Gideon. The commission comprises three parts. First is the statement that Gideon is to “go in this might of yours.” This statement is frequently misunderstood as referring to some inherent strength in Gideon, but nothing could be further from the truth. Given the context, the strength of Gideon is the promise of the divine presence that appears in verses 12 and 16, bracketing this statement. Gideon’s strength is the Lord himself (cf. Ex. 3:11–12; 2 Chron. 20:6). The second part of the commission is the promise of victory over Midian by Gideon though the strength of the Lord. The final part is a rhetorical question used to express certainty. In other words “Do not I send you?” is to be understood as “I have indeed sent you!”

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Self-reliant Christianity is a dead end. It will lead to eternal, spiritual death. However, we have a better way. All who have true union with Christ will live a life pursuing communion with him. Jesus wants us to know we are weak so we can find our strength in our communion with him. 

In America, it is common to believe that we can achieve anything we put our minds to. Young children imbibe this self-help gospel throughout their earliest years. Parents fuel this mentality by spending exorbitant amounts of time and money helping their children build a successful life based on the fallacy that their hard work and willpower are the ultimate means of their favorable outcomes. None of this is inherently sinful, and we shouldn’t be overly cynical. Hard work, dedication, and diligence are virtues our children and grandchildren need. Yet, when these achievements become their hope, they are blind to the innate weakness found in every one of us.
Like our children, we love to feel strong, too. We desire to stand on our own. We love to marvel at our accomplishments. Can we agree that the hustle culture led to the burnout culture we are facing today? Yesterday’s productivity culture ended up crushing us. We lose our humanness when we refuse to see our weakness. Instead of creatures reliant on the God who gives rain for the grass, seeds for the birds, and dens for the lions, we frame ourselves as little gods who can get on without relying on others.
We don’t say these things out loud. That would be far too crass. Instead, we mumble, “Give us this day our daily bread” as we dash out the door to work—daily bread in hand as we go make money to buy more. As strong as we feel, Jesus wants us to know that we are weak, and he wants us to see that weakness is a prerequisite for true spiritual growth.
Self-Reliant Sanctification Doesn’t Exist
Jesus uttered some of the sweetest words in all Scripture when he said, “I am the true vine” (John 15:1). At first glance, this sounds odd to those of us who haven’t grown up near grapevines. Yet, both in Jesus’s day and in Mediterranean culture today, grapevines produce the fruit needed to make the antioxidant-rich wine found around dinner tables and in churches. Jesus couldn’t be clearer: if the branches of a grapevine aren’t attached to the vine, it is impossible for them to produce fruit.
Christians, we are the branches and Jesus is our true vine. Let those words steep in your heart. Absorb the scent and taste of those words deep into your soul. It is impossible for us to bear spiritual fruit apart from Jesus because self-reliant sanctification doesn’t exist. We won’t even be truly concerned with fruit-bearing and spiritual growth if we aren’t abiding in him.
We may be concerned with keeping up appearances. We may desire to check off the spiritual boxes on our productive Christian to-do lists. We may even desire to please God by obeying his commands. But when we aren’t abiding in Christ, we are living an oxymoron.
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We can draw the inference that a Christian in politics – just as we would say to a Christian butcher, baker or candlestick maker – is called to honour God in the position he has given them and seek to live faithfully as believers as they go about their work. But this is not the same as the church qua church. Nor, incidentally, do we find many – even with the wherewithal to do so – pushing for government or regime change. It was John Calvin who said, ‘No man should think he is giving less service to the one God when he obeys human laws, pays tax, or bows his head to accept any other burden.’ The tenor of scripture, and consistent noise of the Bible, is submission to human authorities and non-compliance only when submission would cause us personally to disobey God.

Yesterday, we were continuing our sermon series in Matthew. This week we had reached Matthew 22:15-46 and the various attempts to trap Jesus with tricky questions. If you want to know how that passage was handled, you can watch our service back here – the preaching in our church comes at the front end of the service.
One of the points I made in that sermon concerned submission to civil authorities and government. Jesus’ famous ‘render unto Caesar’ comments – if he is saying anything at all – is that there is nothing incongruous or incompatible between living faithfully as believers and submitting to civil authorities. Everybody tends to get their knickers in a twist about ‘bad government’ and ‘government overreach’ but it doesn’t seem to trouble them that Jesus says nothing about that nor caveats what he says. Jesus is effectively commanding submission to the human authorities he has established in government.
It also bears saying two further things before I get to the point. First, Jesus is making these comments in the context of the Jewish people having just cheered him into Jerusalem and affirmed him as the Messiah. Matthew has been very carefully arguing up to this point that Jesus’ kingdom and messiahship will not necessarily meet the expectations of the Jewish mainstream understanding of kingdom and Messiahship. The expectation of the day is that the Messiah (and, therefore, Jesus at this point in their thinking) will re-establish the throne of David, reunite Israel and drive out the Roman occupying forces to restore a Jewish Free State under a Davidic king.
Second, it bears saying that the political context in which Jesus is making these comments is that of the Roman Empire. Leaving aside mainstream Jewish expectations of the Messiah, the Romans were hardly deemed benevolent rulers. The Jews hated them and their occupation of their land. And things didn’t get much better when the Apostles pick up Jesus teaching in both Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:17, both of which were written during Nero’s reign. Whatever else you may say about Nero, benevolent and tolerant are not the two obvious words that come to mind. So, for later Christians, for Paul and Peter to pick up this teaching and command submission to Rome and to ‘honour the Emperor’ is no small thing. This is the wider political context into which Jesus makes his comments.
In my sermon, the point I drew was a simple one: Jesus calls us to submit to earthly authorities. The repeated tenor of the New Testament is to submit to earthly authorities. So long as they are not specifically asking you to personally sin, you are to submit even to government you think of as particularly bad. There are no examples in the New Testament of Christians rising up to fight the power nor of seeking to gain control and then pull the levers of power. The general tenor of scripture is both to submit to authorities (cf. Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:17) and to seek, not authority or special treatment or any such thing, but simply to pray that we would be able to lead peaceful and quiet lives (cf. 1 Tim 2:2). Very much a live and let live attitude, seeking nothing more from civil authorities than the ability to freely obey Jesus on a personal level. #
There is no crowing about government overreach anywhere in scripture nor is there a concerted and organised campaign by any of the churches to overturn social injustice – something which challenges the engagement of both left and right; both culture and social justice warriors. The church addressed injustice by seeking to lead peaceful and quiet lives as a church in all holiness, serving the community around them by doing what Jesus asks them to do as believers (cf. Acts 2:41-47; 4:32-37). Their only engagement with government were not when the authorities were passing laws that meant other people could sin in ways the church deemed detrimental to society nor to organise for rights and privileges (we see neither thing). Rather, it is only when the authorities sought to stop the believers from being able to obey scripture on a personal basis (e.g. Acts 5:27-32). Even then, the consistent message of scripture is simply non-compliance i.e. we will not do that and we will accept and submit to the consequences.
Which brings me to my point. It is very easy to look at Jesus’ words here, and the Apostles further teaching on it in the rest of scripture, and challenge others with it.
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