As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
Read Part 1.
Although Gideon is certainly a man driven by his anxieties when we first meet him in Judges 6, the magnificent accomplishments which God worked through him were definitely done on the basis of faith.
Indeed, this man of fear became a man of faith—and it was that faith that drove one of the greatest victories in all of Biblical history.
When we first encounter Gideon, the fifth of the 12 leaders of Israel described in the book called Judges, he is definitely a man who is overwhelmed, even dominated, by fear.
Gideon lived during that long stretch of time—more than three centuries—between the days of Joshua, and the launch of the monarchy, which is captured for us in the shadowy book of Judges.
“But before I start digging deeply into the relationship between religion and fear, I wanted to help orient us to how fear is distributed in the public on a number of demographic variables like age, race, and education.” - Ryan Burge
“This article isn’t meant to be a discussion about mental illness or its treatment, but I’d like to consider what ordered anxiety might look and feel like in the life of a follower of Jesus.” - TGC
“The easiest way to not be afraid of anything is to be ignorant….The second easiest way to not be afraid of anything is to not love anything….These are sub-Christian options.” - TGC
Read the series.
Believe it or not, one year I played football. American football. I was an offensive lineman.
Pop Warner League. Seventh grade. Weight limit was 110 pounds at the top, 75 at the bottom. I was 2 pounds too light, but they let me play anyway.
We called ourselves the Patriots. (We were in a Boston suburb.) We lost every game but one.
Written in 2018; read the series.
When Adam sinned, God confronted him. And in a really remarkable display of chutzpah (was the first language Yiddish?), Adam blamed his wife. And then, in the same breath, he blamed God himself: “the woman, whom YOU gave to me … “ (Gen 3.12).
“Almost 7 in 10 pastors (69%) believe there is a growing sense of fear within their churches about the future of the nation and world.” - Lifeway
Learning from History, not Reacting to It - Dave Doran
Discussion