We’re moving right from the successes of Joshua to the failures of Judges, following our Reading Plan for the Historical Section of the Old Testament. I’m reading The Message this year, and the translation by the late Eugene Peterson is worth it for the book introductions alone. Here’s most of his introduction to Judges. Warning: the introduction is not child-friendly, but neither is some of Judges.

Sex and violence, rape and massacre, and brutality and deceit do not seem to be congenial materials for use in developing a story of salvation. Given the Bible’s subject matter—God and salvation, living well and loving deeply—we quite naturally expect to find in its pages leaders for us who are good, noble, honorable men and women showing us the way. So it is always something of a shock to enter the pages of the book of Judges and find ourselves immersed in nearly unrelieved mayhem.

It might not gravel our sensibilities so much if these flawed and reprobate leaders were held up as negative moral examples, with lurid, hellfire descriptions of the punishing consequences of living such bad lives. But the story is not told quite that way. There is a kind of matter-of-fact indifference in the tone of the narration, almost as if God is saying, “Well, if this is all you’re going to give me to work with, I’ll use these men and women, just as they are, and get on with working out the story of salvation.” These people are even given a measure of dignity as they find their places in the story; they are most certainly not employed for the sake of vilification or lampoon.

God, it turns out, does not require good people in order to do good work. He can and does work with us in whatever moral and spiritual condition he finds us. God, we are learning, does some of his best work using the most unlikely people. If God found a way to significantly include these leaders (“judges”) in what we know is on its way to becoming a glorious conclusion, he can certainly use us along with our sometimes-impossible friends and neighbors. – from Introduction to Judges in The Message by Eugene Peterson

“God does not require good people to do good work…God does some of his best work using the most unlikely people…He can certainly use us…”

That will preach! There’s another way to introduce Judges, and I’ll write about that tomorrow.

Here is a list of the nations the Lord left in the land to test the new generation of Israel who had not experienced the wars of Canaan. For God wanted to give opportunity to the youth of Israel to exercise faith and obedience in conquering their enemies… (Judges 3.1, 2, TLB)

Later the Master selected seventy and sent them ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he intended to go. (Luke 10.1, MSG) – Ordinary people! We don’t even know their names.