This is Spoken Gospel.

We’re dedicated to seeing 
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see
what’s happening in a Biblical text

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his gospel.

Let’s jump in.

After Gideon dies, his 70
sons are given control of Israel.

One of Gideon’s sons, Abimelek, conspires with
his mother and her relatives to overthrow his father.

Eventually he begins his reign by
slaughtering 69 of his father’s sons on a stone.

But Jotham escapes Abimelek’s purge and uses a
fable to warn those who are now following Abimelek.

Jotham warns that honorable
men are slow to accept leadership.

Abimelek's meteoric rise, Israel’s uncritical allegiance to him,  
and Abimelek’s thirst for power will one day destroy them.

This is exactly what happens.

Abimelek is slowly handed over to the
same violence he inflicted on his brothers.

God is done showing mercy to Israel, and instead
promises fairness and perfectly proportionate retribution.

Throughout Abimelek’s story God is ominously silent except
to further confirm Israel’s chosen path of self-destruction.

This does not mean God is absent in 
Abimelek’s increasingly grisly victories.

Rather, God directs Abimelek’s 
bloodlust to its deserved end.

Just as Abimelek's conspiracy depended 
on the support of his mother’s family 

and the slaughtering of
his brothers on a stone, 

Abimelek is killed by a mother with a stone.
Abimelek receives the perfectly proportional
retribution for his crimes

in the form of a woman
crushing his skull with a rock.

[music]

The apostle Paul, in his letter
to the Romans, tells us that

God’s judgment is seen when he
hands us over to our sinful desires. 

Like Abimelek, once we devote ourselves to the gods of this
world, we should not expect mercy but slow and brutal fairness.

The way we dishonor God and harm
others returns to us in perfect proportionality.

This is good news for those of us 
who have experienced despicable evil.

Our tormentors will be poetically
repaid for the harm they have done to us.

But ominously, we are all 
still under Jotham’s warning.

Just as the citizens of Israel rejected Gideon’s sons,
we reject God’s leadership. We pledge uncritical
allegiance to greed, pride, power, and sex.

Like Abimelek trusted violence, we trust our desires will
secure us with the power, safety, and happiness we seek.

Like Jotham warned, we should not be surprised if those things
curve back around and punish us with brutal proportionality. 

But God’s fairness is not his final 
word to us. God is rich in mercy.

He sends another Judge to his 
unfaithful and undeserving people—Jesus.

Jesus, unlike Abimelek, is
the rightful Judge of his people.

But Jesus doesn’t get what he deserves; he gets what
we deserve. Jesus allows our evil
to curve back around on him.

Instead of a coup, Jesus absorbs the fairness
we deserve in an act of willing and humble sacrifice.

He ends the retribution we’ve earned and 
justifies everyone who accepts his leadership.

Jesus is the only leader
worthy of our allegiance.

He welcomes us into his Kingdom
where the only thing left for us is mercy.

May the Holy Spirit open your eyes to see the 
God who repays evil proportionately and fairly.

And may you see Jesus as the one who
absorbs what we deserve and gives us only mercy.