Judges 11:1-4
Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior, but he was the son of a prostitute. Gilead was the father of Jephthah. And Gilead's wife also 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.” Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob, and worthless fellows collected around Jephthah and went out with him.
After a time the Ammonites made war against Israel.
Tag: God uses the outcast
In the book of Judges we have the cycle of Israel falling into sin - God sends a nation to oppress them because of their sin - Israel cries out in repentance and asks for deliverance - God rises up a "judge" to lead them to repentance and into battle against the oppressor God sent - God delivers them from the oppressor He sent to oppress them because of their sin - The people rejoice - the people fall into sin and the cycle repeats. Here in the above passage we see the background of one of the "judges" God sends to lead them into Repentance and battle. Jephthah is an outcast. Throughout Judges we see the least of those in the nation become leaders. God does not start with the rich and mighty. He does not deliver them via the "top shelf" people - but rather through the "lowly." God is a God who values those He can use because they are the lowly. They don't have their own riches, status or power to rely on. God uses those who trust in Him and He is all they have. God sues those who have nothing so that at the end of the battle it is not their power, wealth or status they can point to, but rather their complete and utter trust in God. God uses fishermen to tell his story not royal scribes of learned universities. God uses the weak to confound the wise and the strong.
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