Year 4, Day 273: Judges 12

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Chemistry

• Chemistry asks whether the person in question can work with the other people that God has called.

In Judges 12 we get another opportunity to look at Jephthah.  In my theological commentary from 3 years ago, I was reminded about the fact that the Ephraimites came up against Gideon as we heard in Judges 8.  I was reminded how Gideon diffused the situation by humbling himself whereas Jephthah reinforces the conflict and fighting breaks out.  42,000 Hebrew people die because the situation cannot be resolved peacefully.

This led me to think about the idea of chemistry.  Does a person have what it takes to work with other people?  Does a person have what it takes to build relationship with others?  I believe we all have this ability, but some of us are able to do it on a much larger scale.  After all, some people have hundreds of friends and everyone seems to like them.  Others of us seem to have only a handful of friends, but those friendships run very deep.  All of us have the ability to have chemistry with others; we just have it in differing degrees.

Clearly Gideon had lots of chemistry.  Gideon was able to finagle his way into becoming the king of the Hebrew people – attested by his son’s name!  Jephthah, however, doesn’t appear to have much luck with chemistry.  His own people drive him out as we saw in the last chapter.  They only take him back when they need him.  Now the Ephraimites come before Jephthah and Jephthah doesn’t have the chemistry to diffuse the situation.  It’s a tough lesson for Jephthah to learn about himself.

But here’s the neat thing.  In the end, God still works through Jephthah.  God doesn’t only use the high-chemistry people like Gideon.  In fact, one might argue that in the end of his life Gideon’s high chemistry actually got him and the Hebrew people under him into quite a bit of spiritual trouble!  This isn’t true about Jephthah.  He may make people mad and not have the chemistry to fix the situation, but neither does he lead the Hebrew people away from God, either.  In this respect, Jephthah is not too unlike Samson, who we’ll meet shortly.

One doesn’t need high chemistry to follow God.  One simply needs to use what you have and follow God’s leading.  Where God leads, He will equip you to do the work that needs to be done.

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