"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." This is the quote that best sums up the story of Gideon. Often when Gideon's story is told it ends right after the miraculous defeat of the Midianite army, thus extracting a moral along the lines of "If you have faith, God will defeat your problems," or "It is okay to test God to receive a sign." The problem with these moralizations is that they oversimplify the biblical narrative and completely ignore the latter half of Gideon's story. This week we look at how Gideon, once he got a taste of victory, turns his holy calling into a revenge mission and completely destroys everything God called him to do, eventually stealing the throne from God and leading the people he was supposed to save back into apostasy. We will then look at how this story can bring us, not a simple moral on how to manipulate God with our prayers, but a deep insight into why God chooses to work within human history and why the Bible takes on a narrative form.