I was chilling this morning at our local Starbucks-lite, hanging out with Jesus and thinking through His presence in the Gideon story (Judges 6-8).

Jesus is directly present as a Theophany, as the angel of the LORD (Judges 6.11-22). But what really had my brain turning is how, behind the text, the author contrasts Gideon against Jesus through Jesus' roles as prophet, priest and king.

Prophet: before Gideon even gets on the scene, an unknown prophet lays out God's message of deliverance (6.7-10). It is as if the author says, "fine you won't listen to Deborah, the 'prophet-woman' (4.4) so I'll give you a 'prophet man' (6.8) and because you won't listen to him either, the leader your about to get surely will not be speaking for God!" Aren't we glad that Jesus does, as the "Word" of God (John 1.1)!

Priest: at the end of Gideon's life he goes out in a blaze of anti-glory by creating a golden Ephod snare (8.24-27). This idol looks religious but takes Israel's eyes of the Lord and serves as a tangible manifestation of their syncretic relationship with the pagan idol worship of the nations around them. How often do we live that way, focused on churchianity and not Jesus, our High Priest (Hebrews 4.14; 12.1,2).

King: one of the great tensions in Judges is the people's looking for someone to fight for them and save them (1.1). So when the people come to Gideon and ask him to be king (8.22) we think maybe Gideon will not end so bad (8.23). But then he creates an idol (see above) and then names his son Abimelek: my father is king (8:31). May we live on mission with Jesus serving our king (Philippians 2.9-11).

If these observation can stand up to scrutiny, wow what great literature and inspiration by the Holy Spirit! May we not live in our own strength, like Gideon and instead may we cooperate with Jesus our prophet, priest and king! Note, I don't think we can call Gideon and anti-Christ, he is mentioned in Hebrews 11. Instead, maybe the point is simply, no matter how much God does through a person, don't look to the human vessel but let us keep our eyes on Jesus.