Posts - June 2017
If Samson was alive today, he would be telling people who love to live on the fast lane, “been there, done that”. Samson lived his life breaking every rule in the book. He was chosen by God to rule Israel, yet lived carelessly and did things that were clearly in contrast to God’s laws. He relied on his superhuman strength which was given to him by the same God that he took for granted.
Chapter 16 of the book of judges starts with Samson going to Gaza which is clearly an enemy territory. While he was there, he saw a prostitute and spent the night with her. News soon went round that Samson was there and an ambush was laid for him with the anticipation of taking him out in the morning. Unfortunately for th...
Scripture does not tell us much about the growing up years of Samson except that, “And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him while he lived in Mahaneh-dan, which is located between the towns of Zorah and Eshtaol” (Judges 13:25)
By the time we flip to the next chapter of Judges, Samson is already a grown man. We learn that one day, He went to Timnah where one of the Philistine women caught his eye (Judges 14:1) We are not told what he went to Timnah to do but what we are told was that the minute he saw this Philistine woman, he had to have her. This was one of the weaknesses of Samson. When he got back home, he told his parents, “A young Philistine woman in Timnah caught my eye. I want to marry her. Get...
Lately, I have been learning a lot about Samson from the story in Judges 13 - 15. It is not the first time I have read this story but as is often the case when I read scripture, there is always something new to learn even when reading the same portion of scripture you have read before.
So as I began reading from chapter 13, I noted that Samson’s mother was barren. We don’t know whether she was past child-bearing age but what was established was that she could not have children. They had obviously been married many years and had undoubtedly tried having children ti no avail. If there was any doubt about her ability to have children, this was made clear when she had a visitation from an angel. T...
