Significance in insignificance
Last week we kinda laughed at these two seemingly trivial leaders/judges in Isreal. We joked at how there’s people like Deborah [2 chapters], Gideon [3 chapters], Samson [4 chapters] and even Ehud [19 verses] but so much packed into his crazy story. And now these two dudes have to share 5 verses! I took it as a personal challenge to base a study around these two insignificants to try to find some significance…Bring it on!…

[Read > Judges 10: 1-5]

• Do you think the amount of words written about someone in the bible can equate to how important they are?

[Activity] > Along with Tola and Jair, the other “minor” Judges include Shamgar [Chapter 3], Ibzan, Elon & Abdon [chapter 12] can you find anyone in the bible who has seemingly small insignificant parts to play…but actually they were significant?

• What could be the reason(s) for the lack of detail about Tola & Jair?
• Tola & Jair’s stories follow Abimelek’s without any kind of break. What could this tell us?

These short, seemingly insignificant few verses may not tell us much about these 2 characters, but they do tell us something about the character of God. In particular, about this God of Israel in her low fortunes at this time…

• This man, Tola “rose to save Israel” (or “was sent to deliver Israel”). Can you find any other Judges who were “called”, “rose” or were “sent” in the same way?
• Regardless of if Tola had been called as a military leader or as an administrator or both, what does this tell us about Tola, God & us?
• How is the link/comparison to Deborah significant?
• Next we see Jair. What is the importance of his 30 sons with 30 donkeys in 30 cities?
• Following last weeks story where the Isrealites chose a tyrant king, slip back into idolatry AND ignore the warnings of Jotham, they deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth. Instead, they get 45 years of peace under Tola & Jair. Why?
• What does this tell us about God?
• How is this applicable to us in 2010?