Jephthah

Sometimes men of faith are easy to envision yourself sitting down with to share a beer and a laugh, and maybe even a fight. We couldn’t possibly let them speak in church because of their generally loose and torrid ways, but if we could, it’d be so interesting. Take Jephthah, for example. What a pip.

The sons of Israel said to the LORD, "We have sinned, do to us whatever seems good to You; only please deliver us this day." So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD; and He could bear the misery of Israel no longer. Then the sons of Ammon were summoned and they camped in Gilead. And the sons of Israel gathered together and camped in Mizpah. The people, the leaders of Gilead, said to one another, "Who is the man who will begin to fight against the sons of Ammon? He shall become head over all the inhabitants of Gilead."

Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a valiant warrior, but he was the son of a harlot. And Gilead was the father of Jephthah. Gilead's wife bore him sons; and when his wife's sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him, "You shall not have an inheritance in our father's house, for you are the son of another woman." So Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob; and worthless fellows gathered themselves about Jephthah, and they went out with him. ~ Judges 10:15-11:3

Oh, yeah. Here’s your model of faith, your paradigm of hope, your answer to prayer. The son of a whore, driven from his home, is coming back surrounded by a lot of reprobate worthless losers to deliver the people of God. And he ends up making a rash vow and sacrificing his daughter.

And THIS guy the writer of Hebrews lists as a hero of the faith (Hebrews 11:32). Jephthah, the outcast, the deliverer, believed God.