The Trumpets of Gideon – Sunday School circa 1905

I have posted Sunday School material from a variety of Protestant denominations.

Today’s example is from a once-independent branch of the Lutheran Church, now part of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA).

The Augustana Lutheran Church began as a fellowship of Lutheran churches in areas of the Midwest that were being settled by Swedish immigrants.

The group later organized as a synod, the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod in North America, then as a broader Scandinavian synod, and eventually joined other Lutheran groups to form the LCA  in 1962.

This merger into the larger Lutheran body was 102 years after the Swedish synod was formed in 1860.

As an independent organization, the Augustana Synod maintained a publishing house in Rock Island, Illinois where the group’s college, Augustana College, was also founded.

(Rock Island is a city on the Mississippi River in northwest Illinois.  It was an important trading and transportation hub since the early 19th century, and the center of munitions manufacturing.)

The Augustana name survives in Lutheran churches across the Midwest and in other parts of the US.

Today’s Sunday School lesson was printed by the Augustana Book Concern of Rock Island in the early 20th century.

Unlike some other Sunday School materials, this lesson is not dated.

The story of Gideon is a dramatic tale from the Book of Judges.

Gideon is called to lead a cadre of fighters against enemies who were despoiling the communities of Israel.

The brief synopsis on the reverse of the illustration omits some of the interesting elements in the Biblical account, including the criteria for choosing the defenders.