Worthless

 Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob, and worthless fellows collected around Jephthah and went out with him.
Judges 11:3 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/jdg.11.3.ESV

Jephthah was unpromising material to save Israel. The illegitimate son of a prostitute, when he grew up, his brothers drove him away. Nowadays, he would probably have been aborted.

When reading Scripture, the temptation is to try and apply it directly to ourselves. But as Jesus explained, all of Scripture points to Him, not us. We might like to identify with Jephthah the underdog, but here he is a shadow of Christ.

There were questions around Jesus's own legitimacy (who ever heard of a virgin born Son?). His own step brothers initially rejected Him in His ministry. His followers weren't humanly worthy fellows, fishermen and a tax collector etc.

We might not feel particularly worthy of Christ ourselves, and of course we're not. He delights to choose nobodies like us however. As Paul said, not many of us were of worldly significance when Christ called us.

'Father God, we worship You for our Saviour Jesus, through whom You gladly welcome us into Your presence, by Your Holy Spirit, in Christ's name, amen'

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