That same night the LORD said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. – Judges 6:25

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 31, 2019): Judges 6

Leo Tolstoy in his “Confessions” wrote that “wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.” Our culture seems to like to confuse the idea of what is right with that that is popular. President Donald Trump often conflates the two. He is right, and his opponents were wrong because he won the election. A border wall between the United States and Mexico is right because the people support the idea (Donald Trump) or wrong because the people oppose the idea (Democratic Party). But righteousness and popularity seem to seldom coincide with each other. And a real leader must find a way to lead the people out of the error that the majority find popular and into the truth, which is often much harder to find.

Israel was under attack. The enemy had a strategy. They would leave the nation alone while they planted and cared for the crop. But when the crop was ripe and ready to be harvested, then they would swoop in and take the crop away, leaving Israel perpetually hungry and living off of the remains of what their enemies had left behind. According to the people, this was the problem. It was the reason why Gideon had been driven to threshing wheat in a winepress, a very ineffectual way to thresh the grain, in the first place. He was trying to hide the crop from those who wanted to take it from him.

But if the nation had bothered to ask God what the problem was, God would not have pointed at the Midianite and Amalekite raids on the crops. God would have pointed at the altar the people had built to Baal and the poles they had placed around them to honor Asherah. So as God moves into the neighborhood, he calls Gideon to be his warrior. In the opening conversation with Gideon, the Angel of the Lord recognizes the issue of the people; the problem was the raids of the eastern invaders intent on stealing the crops. But before the eastern peoples could be dealt with, the spirituality problem of Israel had to be confronted. God instructs Gideon to tear down the altar built to honor Baal and the Asherah pole that stood beside it.

The thought of what God was asking scares Gideon. After all, the destruction of the altar built to honor Baal and the poles placed to honor Asherah are not going to be popular decisions. The majority would oppose the action. But Gideon seems to understand that if the eastern peoples were going to be dealt with, that this unpopular action must come first. Gideon, the scared boy, hiding in the winepress, trying to keep his crop out of the hands of his enemies, was going to have to be transformed into the warrior the angel had insisted that he was at their first meeting. He was going to have to be a leader, and do what was unpopular because he knew it was right.

The altars built to false gods had to come down before the nation could deal with the invaders coming in from the east.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Judges 7