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The Book of Judges: Samson's Strength and Sacrifice w/ Eric Johnson (Part 9 of 9)
Why would God use a flawed man like Samson to begin to deliver His people? In our final episode on the Book of Judges, Eric Johnson brings to life the riveting and complex story of Samson. We explore not just his unparalleled strength but also his significant shortcomings. From the Israelites' resignation to Philistine rule to their surprising decision to bind Samson and hand him over, we unpack the deeper implications of their actions and what it reveals about their state of mind.
Samson's life is filled with controversial and unconventional choices, like his desire for a Philistine wife and his violation of Nazarite vows by consuming honey from a lion's carcass. We delve into the drama of his wedding feast and the riddle he challenges his Philistine companions with, drawing fascinating parallels to popular culture.
As we reflect on the lessons from Samson's tumultuous life, we distinguish his intelligence from his often foolish decisions, illustrated by personal anecdotes. We discuss his strategic—yet risky—plans and his ill-fated relationship with Delilah through the lens of Paul's reflections in Romans 7. The episode concludes with a powerful message: God's strength is made perfect in human weakness. Through Samson's ultimate sacrifice, we see a testament to God's ability to work through flawed individuals, leaving a legacy that extends beyond his life.
You are listening to Fellowship Around the Table. Welcome back to Fellowship Around the Table, where we endeavor to have great conversations about life, faith and the Bible. Heath Casey here with Eric Johnson Howdy. We are at the finish line.
Speaker 2:We are.
Speaker 1:Part nine through the book of Judges, finishing up here with Samson.
Speaker 2:This is going to be a fun one.
Speaker 1:It is Eric. I've had so much fun this whole series and walking through. I just want you to know how much I appreciate you coming in and sharing this with us.
Speaker 2:It is absolutely my pleasure.
Speaker 1:All right, let's get into it All right.
Speaker 2:So we're going to go through Samson. Samson gets basically four chapters in Judges. We talked about the first one last week with his birth. We're going to go through his story a little bit out of order, because I kind of like to do this topically as opposed to just straight through. Okay, so we're going to start by revisiting a couple of things in chapter 13. And we kind of touched on this a bit last week. We're going to flesh it out a little bit more here. So to start off this, I'll just ask you how do you think the average churchgoing person sees Samson?
Speaker 1:Strong, like just literally that you know, and a mess Complicated.
Speaker 2:Complicated in some ways but not in others.
Speaker 1:I think is kind of the general perception, yeah complicated figure, because I see that God raised him up, god calls him to all this, but I mean he's a mess. He is, and it's that doesn't like other humans at all.
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting because there's a temptation to look at the power that God gives Samson and see what he does with it and almost say like what a waste it. And almost say like what a waste. And there's a thought there that I don't think people are fully expressing. It's like well, why would you pick that guy? There's almost an implied criticism of God in that. It's like why would you pick that guy out of all the Israelites to give this power to?
Speaker 1:Right? Didn't you know what he was going to be like?
Speaker 2:Exactly and he did. That's the thing. So we'll kind of see if we can help people figure out why God might have picked Samson. There's kind of two things that I think I've come to realize or insights that I've been given, possibly about Samson. We'll see if I can bring those out here. Okay, and so the first one. We're going to jump back into chapter 13 for a bit. Well, the first one comes from chapters 13 and 15. The second one goes 14 and 16. Okay, so in chapter 13, verse one, we have in, the people of Israel again did what was evil on the side of the Lord. What's the next step in the cycle?
Speaker 1:People cry out.
Speaker 2:Israel cries out for deliverance, god raises up a deliverer and Israel is delivered and then there's peace in the land, which we've already seen the peace in the land kind of fall off with Jephthah a few weeks ago we do not see. In chapter 13 of Running Well, in the story of Samson, israel cry out to God for help and it also says they're in the hand of the Philistines for 40 years. 40 years, that is the longest so far, by a good margin. That's more than a generation.
Speaker 1:More than a generation.
Speaker 2:So if you're ruled by the same people for 40 years and you're not crying out for help, you've given up at that point.
Speaker 1:You have 20, 30-year-olds.
Speaker 2:All they've ever known is that they were ruled by the Philistines, absolutely yeah. So, jumping forward to chapter 15, we'll get a little bit more support for that, even Okay. So if you think back on the other stories of the judges, you have the ones who we have full accountings of. We have Othniel, we have Ehud, we have Deborah and Barak, we have Gideon, we have Jephthah, and one of the things that those guys all have in common or girls in the case of Deborah is that they all have an army of Israelites that they raise up and go out and fight for them.
Speaker 2:So in the story of Samson there's only one incident where a group of Israelites get together, armed up, to act in a common purpose, and we get that in chapter 15. So we've had at this point Samson is starting to kind of have some confrontations with the Philistines. But 15, starting in verse 9, the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah and made a raid on Lehi. And the men of Judah said why have you come up against us? They said we have come to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us. Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cliff, to the rock of Etam, and said to Samson do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us? And he said to them, as they did to me, so I have done to them. There's kind of a telling statement that they laid off with there. It's like don't you know? The Philistines are in charge. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And Samson's got to be thinking says who. I don't think Samson feels like the Philistines are in charge in charge.
Speaker 1:We'll kind of get into that a little bit more later.
Speaker 2:But Samson's just like look, they started it basically. And the men of Judah in verse 12 say to him we have come down to bind you that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines. And Samson said to them swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves. They said to him no, we will only bind you and give you into their hands. We will surely not kill you. So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.
Speaker 2:So we see two things there A we see the men of Judah having given up. They acknowledge the Philistines as being in charge. And B Samson knows they've given up. He does not try and say what are you kidding? These guys are in charge. Come on, come with me and we'll go beat them up. We're going to go kick them out because you know, god's raised me up as a deliverer. We're going to go kick the Philistines out, we'll be fine. He knows they've given up and so he says all right, just hand me over to him, I'll take care of it myself. He doesn't say I'll take care of it myself because he doesn't know what they would do with that information.
Speaker 2:But that's what he's thinking. He kind of does crazy things. The assignment that God has for Samson is to fight a one-man war against a militarily powerful foe. If you're going to call someone who's going to do that, you probably want someone a little bit like Samson. Wow, never thought about that. He's not leading an army, he's taking on an army by himself. You need someone crazy.
Speaker 1:The so-called Israelite army that gets raised up is coming to get him Right.
Speaker 2:They're not coming to fight the Philistines. They're coming to grab Samson and hand him over to the Philistines. That's the only time the Israelites gather in force during this story. Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, god knows what he's doing.
Speaker 2:He does. So that's insight number one. That's kind of the easy one.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:All right. So we have this guy who has been called to fight a one-man war and he's going to act like a guy who's fighting a one-man war and from there, by the way, you get the famous incident of him killing 1,000 Philistine soldiers with a donkey's jawbone, yeah, and then he trash talks them after the fact which is kind of funny.
Speaker 2:The jawbone. Yeah, that's one of his notable feats of strength, yeah, and so to kind of get into our second point about Samson, we're going to go back to Chapter 14. And chapter 14, the understanding, which is the story of Samson's marriage. Figuring out this chapter is maybe the coolest thing I've realized about the Bible at all in my period studying it the last few years. Wow, can't wait, we'll see if I can sell you on this, okay, alright, so we're going to break this up into chunks and at the end of each of the four chunks that we're going to do, I'm going to ask you for a summary.
Speaker 2:Now, what I'm what I'm not asking for is like a moral evaluation of Samson's actions. Okay, we can assume that they're probably not ideal, but I'm just asking for like a one sentence kind of quick summary of what has happened. Okay, all right. So, starting verses one through three, samson went down to Timnah and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. Then he came up and told his father and mother I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now get her for me as my wife. But his father and mother said to him is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives or among all our people, that you must go in to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?
Speaker 1:But Samson said to his father get, get her for me, for she has right in my eyes.
Speaker 2:So how would you summarize that? Okay, I got to not overthink here. You can overthink we can cut it out.
Speaker 1:Okay, Samson is just responding to his. He's just rash. He's responding to his lust. Again, not necessarily going for evaluation of him as a person. Just like what happens. Yeah, samson sees a woman and he wants to marry her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's pretty good. The summary I like to use here is Samson likes a girl. Just to put it in, you know, 21st century terms, samson likes a girl. By the way, I'm picking out my summary very carefully here. We'll see if you can figure out where I'm going with this.
Speaker 1:So step one, samson likes the girl.
Speaker 2:Okay, now verse four. We kind of have a little aside from the author, where it says his father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines ruled over Israel. So, going back to kind of what you brought up last week, that his parents would not have actually wanted to know how his life is immediately once he's an adult, it's like hey, get me a Philistine wife, are you kidding? You're a Nazarite, you're called to God's service. He wouldn't violate the one thing that God's been telling us not to do this whole time. But no, this was God's idea, because he wanted a way to get Samson to start some trouble.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:All right. So, starting in verse 5. Okay, samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah. And they came to the vineyards of Timnah and behold, a young lion came toward him roaring. Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him and, although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done. Then he went down and talked with the woman and she was right in Samson's eyes.
Speaker 2:After some days he returned to take her and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion. And behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion and honey. He scraped it out into his hands and went on eating as he went. And he came to his father and mother and gave some to them and they ate. But he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion. Just as a little aside, I enjoy the phrase he tore the lion. In myself have never torn a young goat in pieces like that's. That's not an analogy that I can understand at all.
Speaker 1:Is that something the every man can do?
Speaker 2:apparently as one tears a young goat, you know, like like on goat tearing day day. Oh Anyway, let's do a summary here, all right?
Speaker 1:Summary sentence. There's kind of two events there. But Samson gets the girl and he's hungry and so he eats.
Speaker 2:What does he eat?
Speaker 1:Honey.
Speaker 2:Where does he get the honey?
Speaker 1:Carcass of a lion.
Speaker 2:What's one of the three rules about being a Nazirite?
Speaker 1:Don't do anything unclean and touch dead things.
Speaker 2:Don't touch dead things, yeah, yeah. So I think I'm pretty sure he's allowed to kill the lion to begin with, because otherwise he would just die and that's not very productive, right? But he then comes upon the carcass later, scoops honey out of it, eats it and feeds it to his parents. He doesn't tell his parents what's happened, and presumably he doesn't tell his parents what's happened because he knows he's not supposed to be doing that.
Speaker 2:He knows they would not approve him doing that and would probably make him, you know, do whatever he would have to do to become clean again, and that's just a pain he doesn't want to deal with. So what do you call?
Speaker 1:it when you have, when you have information and you're keeping it from someone else Lying? No, not necessarily.
Speaker 2:No, no, no no, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, not not looking for like a moral evaluation in general terms.
Speaker 1:I don't know. What are you? What are you thinking it's?
Speaker 2:a secret.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, yeah, I'm overthinking.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the confluence of events here the killing of the lion, the eating of the honey, samson has a secret is how I would summarize this Samson has a secret. Set of verses here.
Speaker 1:So point one Samson likes a girl, Samson likes a girl.
Speaker 2:Point two Samson has a secret. Sam, can you see where we're going with this yet? No, don't tell anyone, if you do, all right. So, starting in verse 10, his father went down to the woman and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do. As soon as the people saw him, they brought 30 companions to be with him. And Samson said to them let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is within the seven days of the feast and find it out, then I will give you 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes. But if you cannot tell me what it is, then you will give me 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes. And they said to him put your riddle that we may hear it. And he said to them out of the eater came something to eat, out of the strong came something sweet. And in three days they could not solve the riddle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not solve the riddle, yeah.
Speaker 2:So what's going on there? I don't know. Before we even get into the summary, like what's going on there?
Speaker 1:I mean, he's getting married, so there's like a feast, there's an event, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so who gets invited to the feast?
Speaker 1:30 of his companions.
Speaker 2:It's 30 companions and the way I would read this, based on what happens down the road, is that it's 30 people from the town that his wife lives in, so it's probably 30 Philistine men.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Just 30 young guys who can he can hang out with for a week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just the bachelor party Basically, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so during this, this feast, Samson says hey, I got a riddle for you. And then he gives them something it's riddle for you. And then he gives them something that's not really a riddle. Are you a fan of the Hobbit? Oh yeah, the thing that comes to mind here for me is the riddle contest between Bilbo and Gollum in the Hobbit. Not to spoil the Hobbit, which is like a 75-year-old book for anyone the deciding riddle in that riddle contest is what do I have in my pocket?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And there's like a whole authorial aside there where tolkien is kind of making fun of what's going on in his own writing where he says, like authorities about riddles came, you know, discussed this later and decided it's not really a riddle but because gollum tried to answer it he's bound by the rules of the contest anyway. And so this is. This is basically the what. What do I have in my pocket of biblical riddles?
Speaker 1:because this is nonsense like yeah, it's not something that can be deduced based on the. It's not like there's no clues in it, right?
Speaker 2:like it's just. This is a weird thing that happened to me one time. Guess what it is?
Speaker 1:yeah, and nobody would know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no way that anyone would figure this out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why would they agree to it in the first place?
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Might be what happens at a bachelor party Could be yeah, yeah, this is after a few drinks which he's not supposed to be doing. Yeah, which, to be fair, it doesn't.
Speaker 2:It doesn't ever actually say that Samson drinks but the kind of the the way I like to go through the the Nazarite list with Samson is we know he touches dead things. Yeah, we know he gets a haircut and it doesn't say that he drinks. But some of the things he does are not necessarily things that you would expect to do sober. So we don't know for sure, but I kind of have my suspicions.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But anyway. So the riddle that Samson has asked, which is not really a very good riddle, what does it tie back to that we just talked about in the last section His secret, his secret, yeah, what does it tie back to that we just talked about in the last section His secret, his secret, yeah, so Samson likes a girl, samson has a secret. Who wants the secret?
Speaker 1:These 30 companions now.
Speaker 2:And again, where do we think the companions originate from?
Speaker 1:The Philistines Right.
Speaker 2:So Samson likes a girl, samson has a secret. Philistines want the secret. Okay, I like it, all right. All right. So verse 15, on the fourth day, they said to Samson's wife entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us? So Samson likes a girl, samson has a secret. Philistines want the secret. How would you summarize this verse? The Philistines are willing to take the secret or, you know, threaten him how.
Speaker 1:What avenue do they use Fire Burning a house. Well, who do they go to? Oh, samson's wife. Yes, yes, I'm following.
Speaker 2:So Samson likes a girl. Samson has a secret. Philistines want the secret. The Philistines approach the girl. Okay.
Speaker 1:I hear it now. You see where it's going now, but I'm not going to tell anybody. I have a secret. Eric the Philistines don't want my secret.
Speaker 2:I don't know if there are any Philistines. These days.
Speaker 1:There's not. There's not.
Speaker 2:All right. So we have this very specific situation. We're going to see what Samson does in this situation, okay. So, starting in verse 16, samson's wife wept over him and said you only hate me, you do not love me, you've put a riddle to my people and you've not told me what it is. And he said to her behold, I've not told my father, nor my mother. Shall I tell you. It's like okay, we're married, but we just met Like I don't actually marry you, because that's kind of how things were at the time. You got to know people after marrying them and not before. Right, I was like I haven't told my parents, who've raised me my entire life. I'm not going to tell you. And so she wept before him the seven days that the feast lasted and on the seventh day he told her because she pressed him hard.
Speaker 2:Then she told the city, said to him on the seventh day, before the sun went down, what is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion? And he said to them, if you'd not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle, which I think if you said that these days you would probably be in the doghouse for a while. So what did Samson try? He tried two things here in this very specific situation.
Speaker 1:What did he try first To not give her the secret?
Speaker 2:Right, he refused to answer. He refused to answer. How'd that work out for him?
Speaker 1:This is not good.
Speaker 2:She was mad at him. She kept bothering him about it. It was a huge pain. He didn't like how it worked out.
Speaker 1:The proverb of the woman that the man would rather be on the corner of the house in the roof than with the woman.
Speaker 2:Exactly so he's. He tried that. It didn't work out for him. So what did he try next?
Speaker 1:What did he try next? I don't remember. End of verse 17. Oh, I mean he told her this.
Speaker 2:He told her the answer. He told her the answer Okay, and so how'd that work out?
Speaker 1:Not good.
Speaker 2:Not great. She told the Philistines the secret and then they gave him the answer to the riddle and he held on 30 suits of clothes. Yeah, so he's tried two things. He tried not answering, he tried giving the correct answer. Neither one of those things worked out Right. So the follow-up to that is, the spirit of the Lord rushed on him. He went down to Ashkelon and struck down 30 men of the town Ashkelon is a Philistine city and he took their spoil those who had told him the riddle In hot anger he went back to his father's house and Samson's wife was given to his companion, who'd been his best man. So the mental picture I have here is that Samson goes and kills 30 other Philistines, takes off their clothes, hands them to these guys without, like, washing off the bloodstains, and these guys are like, yeah, we're going to let this one slide. Like, technically, we would rather have new clothes, but uh, I don't think he's in the mood and I don't know that we can take him.
Speaker 1:So you just killed 30 people and there's 30 of us oh, samson, is all right, you guys got your way. You want your clothes, I'll go get them yeah, I'll give it your clothes.
Speaker 2:So this starts a whole escalatingating battle with the Philistines that ends in the scene we saw earlier where the Philistines try and send the men of Judah after him, because they've tried to deal with him themselves. It hasn't gone well.
Speaker 1:And in this whole exchange he lost his wife, right yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean she's been given to someone else. But then he comes down later and takes his revenge on the Philistines and, like destroys a big chunk of their grain harvest. Basically, he takes 300 foxes, ties them end to end like, ties them by the tail, but facing opposite directions, and sticks a torch in each pair of tails and lights. The torches and the foxes just run off like crazy, as you'd expect, and run through the wheat stores and wipe everything out. And the Philistines don't like that very much, and so they do end up going and killing his wife and her entire family with fire, which is what they threatened to do originally.
Speaker 1:Man, it's a rough time. It is Catch 300 foxes in time.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of effort.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of effort.
Speaker 2:This was not a spur of the moment decision. This was probably a. This is a lot of work Pinned out over time, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:Hmm.
Speaker 2:So then we have Samson, you know, killing the thousand Philistines with a donkey's jawbone. You get to the beginning of chapter 16. Philistines think they have him trapped in Gaza where he's gone to visit a prostitute, which is not necessarily the best thing you can do with your life. But they think they have him kind of bottled up in the city and they're like all right, we'll ambush him when he comes out in the morning. He leaves in the middle of the night, rips the city gates off, carries them off by himself and plants them in a hill like miles away, and they're just like yeah, have a good time. Yeah, Wow.
Speaker 1:It's interesting too, the jawbone right, because that's clearly another unclean dead thing. It is, yeah, interesting tools. Ox code. Ox code jawbone.
Speaker 2:And you see, if you look in 1 Samuel, the Philistines don't allow the Israelites to have blacksmiths at this point. So they won't let them like. They don't want to train the Israelites to train their own blacksmiths, because then they'll make weapons, and so the Israelites have to go to the Philistines to have, even like, their farming tools sharpened.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow, and and remembered that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, in this case at least I I assume that mandate is already in effect. And so there you know, samson's working with what he has. Basically, wow, all right. So we have this ongoing escalating battle between Samson and the Philistines, and the Philistines are not doing great in the exchange, given that they're fighting only one guy and he's still alive. So let's jump ahead to chapter 16. Okay, and we'll see if we can glean anything from what's happened in chapter 14. All right, starting verse four. After this, he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah, and the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her seduce him and see where his great strength lies and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to humble him, and we will each give you 1100 pieces of silver. So Delilah said to Samson please tell me where your great strength lies and how you might be bound that one could subdue you. So what's the situation here?
Speaker 1:Samson likes a girl and he has a secret.
Speaker 2:He has a secret.
Speaker 1:The Philistines want the secret. The Philistines want the secret, so they go to the girl.
Speaker 2:They go to the girl. So this weird situation that we had in chapter 14 is playing out again exactly. Wow.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I don't remember exactly what it was, but I remember the feeling I had when this first hit me after reading chapter 14. I was like, oh, this was practice. Samson got a dry run for the situation with Delilah earlier in his life.
Speaker 1:Wow, I've never seen that that is so cool.
Speaker 2:I was floored when that hit me.
Speaker 1:Man.
Speaker 2:Patterns.
Speaker 1:Oh Samson.
Speaker 2:So let's see what Samson does here. Okay, if you remember what did he try before he tried to not, oh, samson. So let's see what Samson does here. Okay, if you remember what did he try.
Speaker 1:Before he tried to not share the secret. He refused to answer, refused to answer, and then he tried sharing the secret with the girl.
Speaker 2:And that didn't work out because she turned on him and gave it to the Philistines yeah, which is understandable in her perspective, because they were threatening to kill her whole family. I'm not judging his wife, I'm just evaluating how things worked out for Samson in the last round. So let's see what he does now. It's 16, verse 7. Samson said to her If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, then I shall become weak and be like any other man. Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried and she bound him with them. Now she had men lying in ambush in an inner chamber and she said to him the Philistines are upon you, samson. But he snapped the bowstrings as a thread of flax snaps when it touches the fire. So the secret of his strength was not known.
Speaker 1:So what does he do here? He lies to her, he gives her a fake answer, he gives her a fake answer, right?
Speaker 2:So he's tried a couple of other things before. So did he learn from the initial events? I guess, right, I think you have to say he did learn from how things went at the time of his wedding. It wasn't going to work to just not answer, right? He tried not answering his girlfriend or his wife at the time, but his girlfriend, in this case, would get mad at him yeah, she would cry all over him. It was just a miserable experience. And then he had tried giving the right answer. That didn't work out well. He had to go kill 30 guys and give them their clothes, and in this case the stakes are much higher, because if he gives her the right answer and she turns on him, then he's going to have his hair cut off, which is the secret and then he's going to lose his strength and the Philistines are going to overpower him and kill him. And so I think it's unavoidable to conclude that he learned from what happened before. What would you call what he's doing here in terms of his relationship with Delilah?
Speaker 1:I mean he wants it to continue, right, he does yeah.
Speaker 2:But what's he doing by giving her a fake answer?
Speaker 1:Placating her. To some extent but there's another part to it.
Speaker 2:I think, I think he's testing her.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, okay yeah.
Speaker 2:If I give her a fake answer and she's just like oh cool, and doesn't do anything with it, then maybe I can trust her.
Speaker 1:Great point, definitely.
Speaker 2:If I give her a fake answer and she acts on it, clearly I can't trust her. That's right. So I think I would say he's testing her Now. What's the purpose of?
Speaker 1:See if you can trust her.
Speaker 2:Right. Essentially, the purpose of testing someone in a manner like this is to act on the knowledge you gain by how they respond to the test. So he tests her. She does the thing that he told her would take away his strength. What's the next step? What should the next step be for Samson?
Speaker 1:To see if she told the Philistines.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think he knows that already. Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:Oh, I mean now he knows he can't trust her with the secret so he was tied up with the bowstrings he breaks off the bowstrings there was an ambush in the house, right?
Speaker 2:so he probably finds the guys and beats them up and throws them out of the house or kills them, or you know what have you? Whatever samson's going to do in that situation, she's failed the test with flying colors, to to kind of turn the popular phrase on its head yeah.
Speaker 2:She's utterly failed the test. The next step obviously is break up with her. Yes, like this is you're dating someone you cannot trust with your big secret that she clearly wants to know. You should probably stop dating her and go find someone else. You're the strongest man in the world. I bet you can find another girl, oh, samson. So this is the thing that interests me about Samson as a guy, and we'll kind of go through the sequence.
Speaker 2:It happens two more times.
Speaker 2:She asks him for the secret, he gives her a fake secret, she does it and then samson, because it's not the real secret, breaks out and beats up the guys who are there to detain him. He has three chances here to do the thing that he should obviously be doing, and again with with him having tested her like the only reason to do that is to act differently depending on how she does. She's failed three times and he still doesn't do what he knows he should be doing and it obviously it works out predictably, like on the fourth time he finally gives up. He's once again tired of his girlfriend crying all over him and says all right, if you give me a haircut it'll work, and she knows it's the right answer. And so the Philistines, you know she gives me a haircut, it'll work, and she knows it's the right answer. And so the Philistines, you know she gives him a haircut. And the Philistines come in, grab him, gouge out his eyes and lock him up. I think the common kind of interpretation of Samson in part is that he's stupid.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree.
Speaker 2:I don't think Samson is actually stupid Like you. Don't have some of the ideas that he has while being stupid. There's a difference between being stupid and doing stupid things. Yes, there is a distinction there. So I'll again go into a personal anecdote with this one.
Speaker 2:So roughly 10 years ago it was I don't remember the exact year, I think it was February in the year and we had, like, our one big snow of the year. In Tulsa we usually get one and this was a pretty bad one. It was, you know, a good number of inches of snow on the ground, and so I had kind of prepared myself the night before, parked near the edge of the parking lot so I don't have to do as much driving and something that's definitely not going to be plowed, and then kind of gotten ready. You know, set my alarm early so I would have more time to drive into work and, you know, kind of get ready to get ready to deal with with the snow. So I get up the next morning, I get in my car, I start driving to work. I'm just sliding all over the place.
Speaker 2:Like the car is just not handling correctly at all. It's it's acting real weird and I see everyone else driving by and their car seem to be doing okay as far as snow driving is concerned, and so I turn myself around. You know I get all frustrated. I turn myself around, pull back into the parking lot and call into work and say I don't think I can make it in today, it's, the driving is too bad. I don't think I can make it in today, the driving is too bad. And then I look at my car and realize that I've forgotten to do something. Do the thing and then drive into work. Just fine, turns out, your car works better when you take the parking brake off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, speaking as a very smart person. Yeah, you can still do very stupid things as a smart person. That's right.
Speaker 2:That's right oh man, and I think that's where you find Samson, because, you see, with the idea of dealing with the foxes, and destroying the grain harvest much more efficiently than he could have done it himself and with less danger to himself than would have been involved in attacking everyone's farms. You see it with Delilah, where he tests her. He's learned from the previous experience that he had Acts differently in this situation and there's an obvious conclusion that he has to have drawn and then he doesn't act on it. That he has to have drawn and then he doesn't act on it.
Speaker 2:To me, knowing what you should do in a situation and not doing it is incredibly relatable, very much so. Like I think it's easy for us to look back, you know, 3,000 years in the past, and kind of sit in judgment on Samson yeah, because Samson is just this hothead who goes off and does crazy things and suffers the consequences of doing crazy things and like, yeah, obviously you know it's easy to just look at him and be like, well, just don't act like that guy, it's fine. It's a little less easy to sit in judgment of Paul. And yet if you look in Romans 7, to blatantly summarize what Paul says in Romans 7, I know what I should be doing. I don't do it. I do the things I don't want to do. What is wrong with me?
Speaker 1:I know that feeling Like that's Paul talking. That's Paul talking.
Speaker 2:It's easier to feel superior to Samson.
Speaker 1:It is not easy for me to feel superior to Paul. That talking, it's easier to feel superior to Samson. It is not easy for me to feel superior to Paul. That's such a great point and as you're working through the larger narrative here, you can see how the Lord's using Samson in all of this.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, if you look at what happens after he's captured, this is one guy. The Philistines capture this guy, they gouge out his eyes, they lock him up and then they throw a huge party, like to anyone who wants to sit in judgment of Samson. Have you done so much on God's behalf that his enemies would throw a party if you stopped? Great question, no, I'm pretty sure I have not gotten anywhere near that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:And then you see the end of the story. You know he's tied up. His hair started to grow out again. They bring him out to the party to just veer at him and make fun of him.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And God gives him strength one last time. He shoves down the pillars of the temple that they have him in and the roof collapses and falls on a bunch of people and 3,000 Philistines die Actually a bunch of people and 3,000 Philistines die.
Speaker 2:Actually, that's the number of people who are on the roof. It's probably more than that were killed, because I suspect there were people inside as well. I suspect it didn't work out great for the people on the roof or the people under the roof. So it says he killed more people in his death than he did while he was alive.
Speaker 1:And I'm sure it's all significant people. Leadership of the city-state, yeah definitely.
Speaker 2:Let me see if it says in there yeah, the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon, their god. So yeah, it's the head honchos of the area. Wow, also, by the way, a little bonus note at the end In 1631, then his brothers and all his family came up and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtael in the tomb of Manoah, his father he had judged Israel 20 20 years.
Speaker 2:So there's a little nugget there that I think is kind of interesting. You remember when we met his parents? Yep, how is his mother described?
Speaker 1:I mean she's working in the field. I mean she didn't give a name. How she described she was barren. Oh yes, oh wow, yes, huh. Now you'll see sometimes that brothers is used to mean like oh yes, wow, yes.
Speaker 2:Now you'll see sometimes that brothers is used to mean like wider family but it says his brothers and all his family.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I feel like that means he has actual siblings?
Speaker 1:Yeah, very cool, I had never seen that.
Speaker 2:So what do you?
Speaker 1:make of Samson overall when you walk through the story, because you remember some of the big events and you remember that he's, I guess you might even say, like a screw up, Like you were given this amazing gift from the Lord and you just, you're just one of those people who are like oh, he's finding trouble, you know finding trouble, you know.
Speaker 1:And yet you come out like 40,000 feet and you see the narrative and you see God's calling on him and what God was going to do with him and that God was orchestrating this stuff and he accomplished the things the Lord wanted him to do. He began to save his people.
Speaker 2:Right, he didn't deliver them, but that was never promised, that's right. And again we saw earlier on that his people were not particularly interested in being saved.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Like they weren't crying out for help, and when they had the opportunity anyway, they turned the guy over to the Philistines themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Lord literally used him to stir up trouble to remind the people that they're not supposed to be ruled by the Philistines.
Speaker 2:Right and he was good at it, he was so good at it.
Speaker 1:The ending too. I mean it's tragic in some way, but just that he calls out to the Lord there in 28, and Samson called to the Lord and said, oh Lord, god, and he's using not a generic God name, he's using the personal name. Yep, please remember me and please strengthen me just this time. Oh God, that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines, for my two eyes Did make it a bit of stuff there. But he's calling on to the Lord.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he does that in other situations too. After he kills the thousand Philistines with a jawbone, he's just by himself in the desert and he calls out to God and says go back and read it. He was very thirsty. He called upon the Lord and said he called upon the Lord and said you have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised? And God answers him, he gives him water. That's cool.
Speaker 2:So he's not a flawless human being, because those don't exist for the most part. What's your take on Samson? The overall message is still tricky for me to get to, even with the stuff that I've learned about him. I think there's a temptation to use Samson as a cautionary tale, and I think there's reason to do that to some extent Because, as we've talked about, samson was given great gifts by God. When he's performing his feats of strength, it often says the spirit of God came upon him and then he was able to do these things. Anyone else you know have the spirit of God available to them and been given gifts? Christians, yeah, all believers, all believers. I think a lot of believers, not necessarily excluding myself, use God's gifts less than Samson did and less productively. And that, wow, that's convicting If you think about how Samson behaves and the general take on Samson is not necessarily a pleasant thing to swallow.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be thinking about that one. Wow, yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:So, since this is our last episode and judges, what do you make of the book as a whole and the conversations we've had, what? What are your takeaway or takeaways?
Speaker 1:A big one for me is I just really encourage people to really get in it and see it, and people have a few memories of some of the bigger stories, like Gideon or Samson, and it's hard for people to read, I think, because I mean stories are they're a little tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're both confusing and they're not happy stories for the most part. Right, yeah, even there's happy moments in them, and then they turn unhappy at the end.
Speaker 1:Right, but there's so much to take away from seeing the Lord at work, what he's doing and how they came from. You know a family that's in all in slavery in Egypt and out of that into the promised land and before they get united and have the Kings. But it really fills in that gap on the history side as well.
Speaker 2:Definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think more than that, that you know, everything's not nice and neat. Life is complicated. Definitely we are in a fallen world and with fallen people, but yet God is still at work. He is Even with those people.
Speaker 2:And to that point, this is kind of the thing I like to bring out as sort of a take-home message from the book as a whole. Bring out as sort of a take-home message from the book as a whole.
Speaker 2:So if you'll remember the story of Abimelech, abimelech is Gideon's son. He and the men of Shechem kill Gideon's other children and then they set Abimelech up as king and God brings him down by sending an evil spirit to divide them, to separate Abimelech from his supporters, and then they basically kill each other off. So you can see in that story and in other stories throughout the Bible, god does not need our help to accomplish his purposes. He chooses to work through us anyway. And if you look at the individual judges who God works through, you have Barak, you have Gideon, you have Jephthah, you have Samson those guys have plenty of issues. Plenty Gideon was just have Jephthah, you have Samson, those guys have plenty of issues. Plenty Gideon was just wracked with doubt. He had to be reassured seven times that God was actually going to do what he said he was going to do. And then Jephthah is kind of a reckless hothead. And then Samson looks at that and says I'll show you, you're a real reckless hothead, but you listed those four people.
Speaker 1:Why did you list those four out of all the judges?
Speaker 2:Partly because they're in Hebrews 11. They are in Hebrews 11.
Speaker 1:I think that shocks people when they first hear that yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so God chooses to work not only through human beings, but he chooses to work through flawed human beings on a regular basis. So there are three passages from the New Testament that I picked out for this. All of them are taken from Paul's letters to the Corinthians, which was a church that was notably full of flawed human beings. Yes, so let's go through those one at a time. All right, if you'll turn to 2 Corinthians, 4, 5 through 7. Sure, we'll do that one in the middle, 2 Corinthians 4, 5 through 7.
Speaker 1:Sure that one in the middle, 2 Corinthians 4, 5 through 7?
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. So in 1 Corinthians 1, which is the introduction to Paul's letter, he says For consider your calling brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to nothing, the things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him.
Speaker 2:You are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. That especially reminds me of Gideon, because, if you remember, gideon musters up this whole army and God says you have too many people. If you win with this army, the Israelites are going to think they did it. Yeah, we're going to give you few enough people so that they know I did it. Yeah, that through seven.
Speaker 1:Okay, for we do not preach ourselves. But Christ Jesus is Lord, and ourselves as your bond servants for Jesus sake. For God who said light shine out of the darkness, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's Paul speaking of his own flaws essentially.
Speaker 2:And the flaws of the people who travel with him, which we touched on earlier. Paul's very aware of his own flaws. Then, to finish up, we'll go to 2 Corinthians 12. Okay, all right, so, starting in verse 7.
Speaker 2:So, to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities, for when I am weak, then I am strong. So you see in those verses that it's the same in the New Testament as it was in the Old Testament. God works through flawed people and he does it on purpose, so that the people who see that will realize who's really doing the work.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So the take home message I have for that is if you happen to be a flawed human being, as I think most of the listeners of this podcast probably, are. If you're not, let us know, because we kind of like to meet you, but if you happen to be a flawed human being and you feel like God can't work through you because of that, he can work through you, specifically because of that.
Speaker 1:Wow, amen.
Speaker 2:So don't let your flaws be an excuse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and can I tag on one more excuse that comes out of that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:We can get stuck in the wrong paradigm that we have to become a better and better, better Christian before God can use us.
Speaker 2:Often you will become a better and better and better Christian by letting God use you.
Speaker 1:Amen, just get after it. Who cares about the baggage? Let's go. That's good stuff.
Speaker 2:On that note, let's go, cause it's real hot in here.
Speaker 1:It is hot in here, folks. It's a 87 in this room right now. Oh well, eric, this is so much fun. Thank you for coming in and taking us through the book of judges. It's kind of neat how this married up with, as a body, going through this on Sunday morning as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we, we did not know that was going to happen when we started this series.
Speaker 1:The Lord orchestrated that.
Speaker 2:I look forward to hearing the rest of the series and finding out what I'm wrong about. That's good.
Speaker 1:Oh well, a lot of fun. I'm sure we'll be doing this again for another Old Testament book. I look forward to it. All right, we'll see you all next week. Thanks for joining Fellowship Around the Table. To check out more, visit fbctulsaorg. Welcome back to Fellowship Around the Table. I'm Heath Casey. Nope, I didn't do that right. Welcome back to Fellowship Around the Table, heath Casey here, nope.
