Community Group Study Guide — Called to Courage
Judges 6:25-35
November 8, 2026
Study Information:
C.S Lewis has an essay in Mere Christianity titled “is Christianity Hard or Easy?” Many of us feel that tension because we read verses like Jesus saying “follow me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light,” meaning that his teachings are meant to relieve us of works based burdens to earn God’s favor and toward peace and life in Christ. Yet, we also know how hard following Christ is because it always comes with a cost. Jesus told his disciples to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him. Does your Christian faith require sacrifice, self denial or courage? Or are you in a place where you can go through the motions and not really have to sacrifice anything or confront fear? There is a cultural Christianity out there that blends faith in Jesus with worldly things and what our passage shows us is that this is not really following God in courage. If you are a follower of Jesus, God will call you to confront your idols and fear and follow him in faithfulness and God even uses that to bring others along.
The Second Altar
Judges 6:25-27
Gideon’s first altar was the offering he laid before the Angel of the LORD was a food offering and the Angel of the LORD consumed the offering and Gideon realized who he was talking to and the Lord responded to his fear with reassurance. Gideon built an altar there to God called “The LORD is Peace.” This altar to God was done in secret between him and God, but God wanted him to take that commitment public. Later that evening the LORD appeared to him again and called him to a second altar. This altar would require him to tear down the altar his family had set up to Baal, build a new altar and sacrifice to Yahweh there. You see there was public sin in Gideon’s family, his own dad, Joash had an altar to two Canaanite Gods named Baal and Asherah and he seemed to be a leader of worship in their town.
This was not easy for Gideon and would require him to have courage. This is where Gideon’s name comes into play, his name meant “hacker.” Gideon would have to hack down the altar and then offer up the bull on the one that was built. What would this fearful and hiding man do?
What is confusing for us as modern readers is that Joash must have taught Gideon about Yahweh because he knew about the Exodus story and questioned the Angel of the LORD about why they were “abandoned” by God. Yet, there was idolatry in the midst of Gideon’s own family. What we learn is that many Israelites did not fully abandon worship of Yahweh but they did something just as bad, they combined worship of God with the gods of Canaan. This is an ancient practice called syncretism and Paul warned against practices like it (Col 2:8, 2 Tim 4:4). They may have “worshipped" Yahweh, but in practice they looked to Baal for agricultural and financial blessing and Asherah for pleasure and fertility. We can often fall into similar patterns where we “worship” God but functionally look to the things of this world for our life, peace and comfort.
God desired for Gideon to leave his place of hiding and fear and lead the people of Israel against the Midianites, but to be successful he’d first have to clean out his own home. You can imagine the amount of courage he’d need for this. Joash was his father and the town worshipped Baal. To tear down the altar would be a full break from this pagan worship and a declaration that he trusted the Lord. He’d need to go against father and neighbor. Gideon was asked to do the hard thing.
However, they could not throw off the Midianites until they cleaned up their home. Before you can correct others or help others fight sin or lead, you’d be wise to first look at your own spiritual life and your own home. Are there areas of compromise in your life? Do you find that you say you worship God but really you worship other things. Are there altars in your metaphorical home you need to cut down? This is not to say that we will be fully without sin, but we should be constantly cleaning our our spiritual closet where we hid secret sin and bring it to the light. Matthew 7:4-5 tells us that if we want to really help our brothers with the specks in their eyes we need to examine our own eyes so we can be of help.
For Gideon’s credit, he followed the LORD in this hard thing, but we see his fear pop up again, he went to do this at night because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town. This fear was not unfounded as we will see next, but this is another example for us of the courage that it will require for us to follow Christ. God will ask us to confront our fears and he is gracious to us to work despite out weakness and fear.
Who Will You Serve?
Judges 6:28-35
Gideon tore down the altar in secret, at night. Tearing it down at night could be wise because no one would stop him, but the text does tell us that he was motivated by fear. However, he would know that it would not stay a secret. The men of the town saw that the altar was torn down and the bull sacrificed and immediately looked for who to blame! Word got back that it was Gideon and they wanted to kill him for this. The spiritual climate of Israel was one where they cared more about gods Baal and Asherah than Yahweh. Who would Gideon, Joash and the two serve? God or the gods of Canaan?
Notice how Gideon’s faithfulness to God impacted others. First, Gideon’s father was called to decide who he followed. Joash stood by his son and Yahweh, rather than the town. This was a dangerous move, the town could have called for his death as well, but Joash pointed them to think about who they served and worshipped. “Will you contend for Baal… if he is a god let him contend for himself!” We can read some foreshadowing to the prophet Elijah at Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18. Joash’s speech led to a nickname for Gideon in Jerubbaal, meaning, “let Baal contend with him.” What we learn in this text is that God will contend and fight for the hearts of his people. That is why he didn’t just let them worship Baal, it is why he sent Gideon and raised up the other judges.
Second, the town and surrounding tribes were impacted by Gideon’s faithfulness. The writer of Judges tells us that the Spirit of the LORD clothed Gideon. What we learn in verse 33 is that the Midianite and Amalekites and the People of the East came together, crossed the Jordan and camped within the land of Israel, waiting to make another raid. But the people of God gathered as well. Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali responded to Gideon’s faithfulness. People see the faithfulness and courage of others and are often motivated to similar courage themselves.
The Christian life requires courage. God does many thing in our lives that require us to do the hard thing and be obedient to him with a potential cost in the eye of family or friends. Gideon had to go public with his faith and likewise we too will live out our relationship with Christ in the eye of people close to us. And the good news is that our faithfulness can be an encouragement to others. Jesus told his disciples that they were light to the world and salt to the earth so that people would see their good works and give glory to God. Even if obedience is costly, it is something that God uses to glorify him.
At your community group:
Take 15-20 minutes to share about how God has been at work in your life, prayer concerns and pray for one another.
How did God speak to you through the scripture and the sermon this week?
Discussion Questions:
Read Judges 6:25-35
What are some reasons it was dangerous for Gideon to obey God with tearing down the altar to Baal?
Why would God want Gideon and the Israelites to confront their idolatry before they fought Midian?
How does Gideon’s courage impact his father and the town?
We may not be called to tear down an altar to a foreign god, but we will each need to exercise courage in our faith? What situations in life do you find that you’re most tempted to keep your faith a secret or to choose the “easy” path? How do you think you can encourage a fearful Christian with a passage like this one?
