Re:Verse passage – Judges 8:18-34 (day three)
“And the land was undisturbed for forty years in the days of Gideon.”
Gideon’s campaign gave Israel two generations of peace. What they did with that peace unfolds in disturbing fashion in the succeeding narrative. For now, however, they had the peace for which they had longed, dreamed, and cried. There are incalculable differences between the ancient Israelite culture and current Western civilization. The one similarity, though, is that Gideon’s peace and the peace which currently characterizes the West both mean freedom from existential threat. In other words, nobody is about to eradicate your world. Do you take that for granted? Everybody does. But now is the time to build a good future. That’s been God’s command from the beginning: “Be fruitful.” That means more than population. Israel did not build a good future in the days of Gideon. With Christ, you can.
