Q4. Gideon's Sin

[masika]

Q4. What is a snare? In what way does Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel? (8:24-27) How can something be a sin if we don't see it as a sin? What was the essence of the sin the Israelites committed? What is the essence of Gideon's sin?

A snare is a trap

It is instructive to see how Gideon went on from victory to victory while acting in dependence upon God. But after all he fell into the miserable snare of taking ornaments from the people and making an ephod which diverted his mind and the minds of the people from the living God to what was an outward witness of past blessing which could not secure present good and power. But by which he evidently sought to connect the deliverance with himself and his house.

We are only a step away from Gideon's sin ourselves. It is so easy for us to think not only that we are indispensable, but that we are the sole agents and means of guidance and of revelation. Many leaders in today's church have become just so absorbed with themselves and their own position and their own agenda that they consider themselves to be infallible, the leaders and the guides of the church.

[Don W]

A snare or trap is anything or anybody that takes away one

[sahala p.s.]

A snare is a trap. The ephod ensnared the Israelites and the members of Gideon's family and even Gideon himself. They began to worship the ephod which had been meant as a commemorative of the victory but soon became an idol to the people. What was meant for a good purpose produced negative results. The Israelites were always looking for a change in their worship and this provided one. They focused on the gold ephod and gave it special powers.

[sahala p.s.]

Q4. (Judges 8:24-27) What is a snare? In what way does Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel? How can something be a sin if we don't see it as a sin? What was the essence of the sin the Israelites committed? What is the essence of Gideon's sin?

A snare is a situation which seems attractive but is unpleasant and difficult to escape from.

Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel in a way that, for his family, divert their focus on caring for the golden ephod rather than serving the invisible God, and for the people of Israel, divert their focus on worshiping it as an idol rather than worshiping the invisible God

Although we don

[Robin D]

A snare is a trap and a pitfall. Gidoen's ephod ensnares his family and the people of Israel because they worshipped the ephod. Something can become a sin the minute it turns our focus away from God. The essence of the sin Israel committed was worshipping the ephod. The essence of Gideon's sin was building and placing the golden ephod in Ophrah.

[brotherbill]

A snare is a trap hidden in the path of a quarry and in walking down the path he is entangled in it by his leg or neck and held there until death or capture or he chews his leg off.

Snares are generally hidden or made to appear as normal and safe but lead to trouble for sure. The ephod was probably seen as a gift to the people to commemorate the great victory over their enemies. But then it became the "Great Ephod" and was bowed down to by the people, it took the place of God. In stead of remembering the victory God gave them they thought the ephod would bring them "victory", "fortune" or "luck."

When an object, person, place or thing becomes the reason we live or get up in the morning. When it consumes all of heart, soul and body and the time we live on this earth, we are bowing to it and not God. This is how money, which we need in this world, and God blesses us to earn it to live, can become "MONEY" and pull our devotion to God towards getting more of it instead.

He lead and ensnared his family and the people in worship of an idol.

Q4. (Judges 8:24-27) What is a snare? In what way does Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel? How can something be a sin if we don't see it as a sin? What was the essence of the sin the Israelites committed? What is the essence of Gideon's sin?

[paulcrf]

Q4. (Judges 8:24-27) What is a snare? In what way does Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel? How can something be a sin if we don't see it as a sin? What was the essence of the sin the Israelites committed? What is the essence of Gideon's sin?

A snare is a trap. I the case of the Gideons ephod, Gideon's family was trapped into worshiping the ephod made by Gideon instead of the living God who brought them free from the Medianites. The have disregarded the miraculous victory that was made possible by God.

Anything which turns our attention away from God is a sin. Money is not a sin, but the love of it makes it a sin. The ephod was not a sin but when the Israelites came to worship it instead of God, then it become an instrument to sin.

The Israelites have rejected God.

Gideon sinned by allowing the people to pray to the ephod. He knows how God had given the victory to him, but he rejected God. He did not glorify God for there freedom from the Medianites.

[Jen]

Q4. (Judges 8:24-27) What is a snare? In what way does Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel? How can something be a sin if we don't see it as a sin? What was the essence of the sin the Israelites committed? What is the essence of Gideon's sin?

A snare is a trap or a temptation of some sort. It lures us onto a sidetrack where we are not on the mainline. We are not in God's will. We might as well be in a pig sty. Only God is true and good. Apart from Him we can do no good and any good we do is from and of Him. We just don't see sin. Too us it is innocent but God knows our enemy and how blinded we are to his wiles. Too take our eyes off of God and put them on anything else can be deadly.

They took their eyes off the one true God.

God Bless!

Jen

Numbers 6:24-26

It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. Lamentations 3:22

[Pamela Harms]

Q4. (Judges 8:24-27) What is a snare? In what way does Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel? How can something be a sin if we don't see it as a sin? What was the essence of the sin the Israelites committed? What is the essence of Gideon's sin?

1. A snare could be anything that entraps us and takes our focus off worshipping the true God.

2. Israel starts to worship the ephod and Gideon and his family become caretakers of this worshipped object.

3. When we focus and place our attention on something or someone other that God.

4. They worshipped the ephod.

5. Gideon became reedy.

[JanMary]

Q4. (Judges 8:24-27) What is a snare?

A snare is a trap set for the unsuspecting to step into, which then holds them captive.

In what way does Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel?

I think Gideon made the ephod to stay close to God...perhaps to use it to seek guidance as he's received for the military campaign. This put Gideon in a position of spiritual authority in the eyes of his family and the people, which ensnared him, because God hadn't ordained Gideon as a priest. It ensnared the others when they began to worship the ephod, rather than to worship God according to the way He had instructed them to worship through Moses.

How can something be a sin if we don't see it as a sin?

God is holy and set the standard for us to live by. If what we're doing, thinking, or NOT doing that He asks, and it violates His Word, it is sin, whether we think so or not. He is always right, and if there is a disagreement between He and I, I am always wrong.

What was the essence of the sin the Israelites committed?

They forsook the worship of their God, to worship something made with human hands which became an idol to them.

What is the essence of Gideon's sin?

Like his father before him, he became the keeper and caretaker of an object the people worshipped, rather than their God.

This put him in a place of power and authority over the people, which had not been given him by his God, and the power corrupted him. I assume he accepted money from the worshippers who came to the "shrine" of the ephod, further corrupting him. He did nothing to stop this sacrilege and heresy.

[Seeking His Face]

Q4. (Judges 8:24-27) What is a snare? In what way does Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel? How can something be a sin if we don't see it as a sin? What was the essence of the sin the Israelites committed? What is the essence of Gideon's sin?

a snare is something that takes attention away from God. The people begin to worship it rather than God. The had idols, they took offering for it.

[hanks]

Q4. (Judges 8:24-27)

What is a snare?

A trap.

In what way does Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel?

The focus is now on the ephod and not our Lord. The ephod has become an idol, much the same as the idols they had worshipped before the war with the Midianites

[Old Jerry]

A snare is something that entraps something. The way that Gideon’s ephod ensnared his family and the people of Israel is that it must have been beautiful and they all started to worship it instead of God.

There are a lot of things that can be a sin and we don’t see it as such. Anything that draws us away from worshiping the one and only God is a sin. The essence of the sin that the Israelites committed was that they started to worship the ephod instead of God. The essence of Gideon’s sin is that he created the thing that the Israelites started to worship.

[wifee]

4a)It is any trap that draws away from worshipping the true God.

B)Gideon and his family’s attention is drawn to caring for the Ephod as this draws many people into the town &is a form of income for it. This puts takes their focus on trusting in &worshipping true God.

C)It is a sin if it assumes more importance than it should &draws away from God.

D) They were worshipping Ephod and not God,therefore being unfaithful to the true God.

E)Gideon unknowingly set up Israelites (by hanging Ephod in town)to worship Ephod instead of God, leading people into idolatary.

[DebLam3teach]

A snare is a trap.  The ephod ensnares Gideon's family as they become the caretakers of a new object of worship.  Israel becomes ensnared by worshipping the ephod as an idol.  Whenever we put anything in God's place, whether we recognize it or not, we make it an idol, which is sin.  Israel was guilty of  idolatry; Gideon was guilty of placing himself as God's representative to the people like a priest.  God had called him originally just to be a judge, not a priest.  Sometimes we start off in the right direction, but then we become ensnared and get totally off base and outside of God's will.  This happened to both Gideon and Israel in this story. 

[haar]

Q4. (Judges 8:24-27)

Q. What is a snare?

A. A trap

Q. In what way does Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel?

A. It attracted them away from the worship of the true unseen God

Q. How can something be a sin if we don't see it as a sin?

A. A sin is a sin whether we see it as such or not

Q. What was the essence of the sin the Israelites committed? What is the essence of Gideon's sin?

A. There is English grammar here that I am not sure I understand the meaning

 

[Jesus Follower]

On 2/6/2003 at 9:50 PM, Pastor Ralph said:

Q4. (Judges 8:24-27) What is a snare? In what way does Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel? How can something be a sin if we don't see it as a sin? What was the essence of the sin the Israelites committed? What is the essence of Gideon's sin?

A way to trap people to where they aren't devoted to God.

They worship the ephod instead of God.

Anything that distracts from or replaces our devotion to God can be a sin.

They replaced worship of God, whom they couldn't see with an ephod that they could see. Walking by sight NOT Faith.

Pride, he could more easily oversee the worship of an object, than listen to & obey God as part of walking by faith. He chose his own way over God's way.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The word snare means entrapment.   Akin to a trap.  A snare will get the mind of the believer entrapped on ungodly matters.  Bitterness and grudges are snares for the believer.  Sin is sin be be because the Bible says so.  Idolatry is the sin that the Israelites  committed.    Covetousness for the gold of prey was the cause of Gideon's downfall.  What Gideon did became a snare to himself, his own house, and the nation.

[Krissi]

A snare is a HIDDEN trap. That’s it’s essence. If it were easily visible, it wouldn't be a snare. Snares are not traps we’re aware of, but those that catch us because they're obscured or hidden. When I think of a snare, I think of clear netting strung between two two trees into which birds blindly fly.

This ephod, though, wasn’t hidden. It's power was in it's visibility. It entrapped the Israelites because they believed it to be one thing when it was another – they thought of it as a means of worshipping Yahweh even as it pulled them away from the worship of Yahweh. In other words, the thing itself became the locus of worship. As Pastor Ralph mentioned, extravagant European cathedrals have this same effect when the beauty of the cathedral draws eyes away from, not toward, the God for whom the cathedral was erected.

Sometimes we see sin belatedly, particularly when it mimes the good. Success, for example, can either be a sign of God’s favour or the outworking of wrong priorities which arise from putting success ahead of God. It’s easy to miss seeing success as sin because it's simply not sin in all cases at all times. I'm not saying sin is relative, but only that the way it appears to us can be misleading. 

Visual or artistic beauty is like this, too. It mimes the good. The ephod could have been seen as a symbol of God's favor and deliverance ...

... but, in the shiny beauty of the gold ephod, Israelites saw a marvelous example of human creativity, which they admired and worshipped. Worshipping what humans make can be idolatry;  marvelling at great art or architecture, for example, tends this direction, at least for me. Sin is often the wrapping of a tendency; it's the thin path that leads to a wider path. Enticements to the thin path, such as this ephod, are the trap to which this verse refers.

A piece of cloth, even if made of gold, is morally neutral. There’s nothing explicitly evil in this object. What made it sin was the way the Israelites substituted the thing for God Himself – that's the pattern of their cyclical apostacy. 

Gideon’s sin was not making the ephod. His sin was his utter blindless, lack of awareness -- lack of love? --  and unwillingness to shield his “weaker brethren” from their tendency to be diverted or entrapped easily and cheaply, from the worship of the one, true God.

[Irmela]

Q4. (Judges 8:24-27)

What is a snare?

In what way does Gideon's ephod ensnare his family and the people of Israel?

How can something be a sin if we don't see it as a sin?

What was the essence of the sin the Israelites committed?

What is the essence of Gideon's sin?

Krissi your answer is amazingly written out. 

A snare is a noose of cord or wire used to catch something unawares.  

I personally don't think that Gideon made the ephod to be worshiped , but rather fashioned it as a memorial for what God had done for them.  Throughout we see that always he points to God being the One to have given the victory, to do the leading, to be the King etc. He is careful not to usurp God's place. So very gradually and unawares the ephod draws the people and they begin to worship the ephod and not God who it meant to point to.  

Anything or anyone that separates us from God is a sin.  

The Israelites prostituted themselves after the ephod.  In plain language they worshiped it as an idol.

Gideon was the one who had fashioned the ephod so he inadvertently became the snare that  led the Israelites into idolatry again.