For All to Read
“And such were some of you.” Those six words are at the end of a list of sinner-types that the apostle Paul gives in his fist letter to the Christians at Corinth. He wrote, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) Wow! What an evil group they are. Then, the apostle goes on in the next verse to say, “And such were some of you.” (v. 11a) Does God use misfits? The Bible is full of sinners who ended up as mighty servants of the Lord. One in particular is Jephthah. His background is in Judges 11:1-3. He was the son of Gilead by a prostitute. When his half-brothers grew up, they threw him out of the house. He became a member of a gang based in the land of Tob. They spent their time raiding the towns and villages in the area. Could a guy like that ever be used by God? Yes, and for the same reason you can be. It is God’s grace that takes junk and reshapes it into trophies for His glory. Listen to the change in Jephthah’s life: “Then [the elders of Gilead] said to Jephthah, ‘Come and be our commander … and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.’” (Judges 11:6, 8) How could a gangster become judge? Only by the grace of God. Look again at 1 Corinthians 6:11 … “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” Our Father, by His grace, loved us when we were on that list of Paul’s. He changed our lives and pronounced us righteous. The only difference between Jephthah and you is that God didn’t write your past down for all to read. He let you keep yours hidden so that people wouldn’t have to know what you once were.
Sin cera, Erik
Erik O. Garthe is Associate Pastor at Canton Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland.