Sunday - Gideon's Call - Judges 6:11-18 - 6/11/17

Gideon - A farmer - To deliver Israel from Midian

Midian, Midianites ... Person & clan name meaning "strife." Midian was the son of Abraham by his concubine Keturah (Genesis 25:2). Abraham sent him & his brothers away to the east, leading to the association of the Midianites with the "children of the east" (Judges 6:3). When Moses fled from Pharoh, he went east to Midian (Exodus 2:15). Here he met Jethro, the priest of Midian, & married his daughter.

It is also possible that as a special messenger from God, the angel had authority to speak for God. God sent a special messenger to deliver an important message to Gideon.

Threshing was the process of separating the grains of wheat from the useless outer shell called chaff. This was normally done in a large area, often on a hill, when the wind could blow away the lighter chaff when the farmer tossed the beaten wheat into the air. If Gideon had done this, however, he would have been an easy target for the bands of raiders who were overrunning the land. Therefore, he was forced to thresh his wheat in a winepress, a pit that was probably hidden from view & that would not be suspected as a place to find a farmer's crop.

Gideon questioned God about the problems he & his nation faced & God's apparent lack of help. What he didn't acknowledge was the fact that the people had brought calamity upon themselves when they decided to disobey & neglect God. How easy it is to overlook personal accountability & blame our problems on God & others.

Gideon had heard about the great miracles God had done for his people, but he hadn't seen any. It had been almost 250 years since the ten plagues & the parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 7-14), & 200 years had passed since the last great miracle, the parting of the Jordan River (Joshua 3). But it was the people who had given up on God. They knew what God expected of them. They had his laws, but they chose not to obey them. God's blessings, as Moses & Joshua had foretold, came only when the people were obedient.

"Surely I will be with thee," God told Gideon, & God promised to give him the strength he needed to overcome the opposition. In spite of this clear promise for strength, Gideon made excuses. He failed to see how God could work through him.

Like Gideon, we are called to serve God in specific ways. Don't spend time making excuses. Instead spend it doing what God wants.

Reference summary used from the Life Application KJV Bible, Tyndale Publishers, Wheaton, IL

Tuesday - The Sower & the Seed - Luke 8:4-15 - 2/21/17

Jesus often communicated spiritual truth through parables - short stories or descriptions that take a familiar object or situation & give it a starting new twist. By linking the known with the hidden & forcing listeners to think, parables can point to spiritual truths. A parable compels listeners to discover the truth for themselves, & it conceals the truth for themselves, & it conceals the truth from those too lazy or prejudiced to look for it. In reading Jesus' parables, we must be careful not to, read too much into them.


Why would a farmer allow precious seed to land "by the way side," upon rocks, or among thorns? He is using the acceptance method of hand-seeding a large field - casting it by handfuls as he walks through the field. That some of the seed produced no crop was not the fault of the faithful farmer or the seed. The yield depended on the condition of the soil where the seed fell. It is our responsibility to spread the seed (God's message), but we should not give up when some of our efforts fail. Remember, not every seed falls on good soil.


God told Isaiah that people would hear without understanding & see without perceiving, & this is what happened to Jesus. The parable of the soil was an accurate picture of the people's reaction to the rest of his parables.


Wayside people, like many of the religious leaders, refused to believe God's message. Hard-rock people, like many in the crowds who followed Jesus, believed his message but never got around to doing anything about it. Thorn-patch people, overcome by materialism, left no room in their lives for God. Good-soil people, in contrast to all the other groups, followed no matter what the cost.

Reference summary used from the Life Application Bible KJV, Tyndale House Publishing, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois