“Gideon’s Army” Debunked
In many Pentecostal Pragmatic circles, a common tactic used to raise up spiritual warriors and / or prayer partners in the church is called “Gideon’s Army”.
This concept is based on Judges chapter 7 where Gideon was called to rise up an army to defeat the Midianites.
However there is one major flaw in this concept. In the Bible, Gideon’s Army went from 32,000 to 10,000 to 300 people. The numbers decreased. In the Pentecostal Pragmatism rendition, the number of the people in this ‘Gideon’s Army” increases and in some extreme cases, stop at 300 thinking that 300 is some magical number that equates the same type of power and anointing will fall upon their endeavors.
In reality, it’s another gimmick to equate exactly copying a Bible story and the expected results must come into fruition because the numbers or the concept matches up. What else have we done this with, Joel’s Army, Ezra’s Temple, Nehemiah’s Wall, etc.?
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Comments
Yahoooo! Let’s mount our camels and go slay…er..I mean convert those religious people! After all–we are Gideon’s army!
Yeah, it’s a symptom of a common problem - not really being able to read the Old Testament properly. They may know the stories (which is perhaps better than most Christians), but are not really sure how they fit into God’s great plan of redemption, not sure how they apply today - most significantly, not sure how to read them in in the light of God’s fullest revelation in Jesus Christ.
We see the same problem with people who want to see Nehemiah as a model for leadership, but haven’t really read the book closely..