The Last Word features posts from the Talbot School of Theology faculty blog, The Good Book Blog. An extended version of this post was first published on May 9, 2011.

I can understand why the so-called “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11 includes luminaries like Abel and Enoch who have untarnished records in Genesis. I can also appreciate why imperfect people like Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses and Rahab are included among the faithful. But what about characters like Jephthah and Samson in Hebrews 11:32? These infamous figures from the book of Judges appear to be severely faith-challenged. So what are they doing in this august list?

Why in verse 32 does the author mention Gideon and Barak (who had reluctant/fearful faith) and Samson and Jephthah (who hadignorant/shallow faith)? Wouldn’the have done better to mention the “better” judges like Othniel, Ehud and Deborah? Or perhaps he should have skipped over the judges altogether and gone straight to David?

First, it is important to clarify that the author of Hebrews 11 is merely listing people from biblical history who demonstrated some faith. He is not technically interpreting the book of Judges or any other specific book of the Old Testament (at least not by our modern “objective” methods). Rather, he presumes that his audience already knows about the depressing message of the book of Judges; so he intentionally does something different. Notice that Hebrews 11:32 actually runs some of the judges together in a litany that includes David, Samuel and “the prophets.” Thus, he is neither expounding on the book of Judges nor on the book of Samuel; he is merely drawing illustrations from biblical history.

Second, it is important to interpret both Hebrews 11 and Judges according to their respective messages, or “big ideas.” This is derived from what an author says or does not say and from how the author says it. The point of Hebrews 11 is to inspire us to grow in our faithfulness to Jesus; the point of the book of Judges is to warn us about our tendency toward apostasy (or faithlessness)! Since Hebrews 11 has a positive objective, the author selectively includes only the positive details from people who had imperfect faith. Judges, on the other hand, has a negative objective; so the author selectively emphasizes the negative details about Israel’s imperfect leaders.

The “big idea” of a biblical passage also relates to theology pr