Heroes: Part 1

PART I: Heroes of the Bible

(This is a slightly revised and expanded version of something I posted as a reply on someone else's blogpost about what makes a true hero...at the end of the post he briefly mentioned Hebrews 11 which is one of my favorite passages, so here are my thoughts on heroes in the Bible)

I love the Hebrews 11 list of heroes - the one thing that ties them all together: faith (defined in verse 1 - "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."). They all believed what God told them and that faith in God dictated how they lived their lives (for the most part). For many of them that meant living less comfortably than they could have, suffering hardships, or even facing death.

One thing about this list that has always jumped out at me is that these people were far from perfect - Noah got drunk and ended up cursing his disrespectful son, Abraham doubted God and tried to take things into his own hands with the Hagar incident, Jacob was quite the con-man in his early days, Moses murdered a man, Rahab was a prostitute, Gideon had major family problems, Barak was a bit of a coward, Samson was a womanizer, Jepthah made a rash vow that cost him his daughter, David committed adultery and murder, etc. YET, "God is not ashamed to be called their God" (v. 16). These heroes are defined not by heir flaws/mistakes/sins, but by their faith in God...their willingness to give up all in pursuit of Him, even if there were few tangible results in their lifetime! THAT is why these men and women are set up as role models for us.

PART II coming within a few days...don't get too excited, it's just some LOTR inspired geeky ramblings (the important/serious stuff was in this post).