“The Bible is not a book full of heroes. It is notable just how many of its so-called heroes are, actually, a bit rubbish. And few books encapsulate the abject uselessness of God’s people – and even more so God’s leaders – than the book of Judges. A book dedicated to the bluntest of blunt tools that the Lord chose to use for his own glory. A glory that is all the greater because of the tools he chose to use.
But even outside of the book of Judges, even the great heroes of the faith all seem to have clay feet. You are hard pressed to find anyone in scripture who doesn’t lose the plot at least somewhere. There are the occasional noble examples, like Daniel, or those who seem basically decent, like Joseph, but they are notable by their scarcity. The Lord seems to delight in using absolute losers who would always be last pick for the football team.
Many of us forget this. There is a tendency among some to always try to rescue the biblical characters from themselves. The inclinations is to say these are essentially good people and the impulse is to try to justify their sin or smooth off their rough edges. This very often leads to a desire to set them up as great heroes of the faith for us to emulate. The Lord’s people, especially those chosen for specific tasks, must be blameless or, at least, sanitised by understanding.”