Day 110 – Judge Samson #3

• Today’s story is well known, and if you knew it already, I hope you enjoyed reading it again. If you were aware of the story before, what things did you see that were new today that you hadn’t remembered or known before?
• A list of Samson’s failings, both in Judges 16 and in the ones we’ve already read on earlier days, would be a long list indeed. What sort of things might you put on such a list today?
• One of the things you might have written down was the choices he made regarding women. Judges 16 opens with a brazen trip to a prostitute, and the wily Delilah was another person who would have done well to avoid.
• What was Delilah’s main aim throughout the narrative today? How many times did Samson deflect the truth to her, and what was her reaction each time his strength remained?
• How did Delilah finally get Samson to give up his secret? Have a think about Delilah’s tactics and the choice the One Story team made to link to the passages in Proverbs. If Samson had followed God’s rules about being with foreign women, would he have got himself in this situation?
• Are you ever guilty of using the “nagging” tactic, like Delilah did? Do you sometimes find it hard to accept something someone else does or says? What could you chose to do differently next time you ask your parents for something?
• Regardless of Samson’s moral and physical weakness, and Delilah’s cunning, how did God mightily use Samson in the end? It really was the end of Samson, wasn’t it!
• Do you think Samson took his Nazirite vow seriously? Regardless of whether he did or not, did that affect God’s plan for him as a judge, and for the people of Israel?

Samson was a very flawed character, and ended up in chains, with no eyes, relegated to die himself whilst fulfilling his mission to kill the Philistines. In his life he did some pretty crazy stuff (I mean, who ties 300 foxes together with lit torches to burn down a village?!), and seemed to act like a carefree maverick. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking we’re better than Samson though – we’re all sinners in God’s eyes. But God used him, and He can use us.

Samson had a mission to be set apart for God, just like the Israelites. And just like the Israelites, he failed time and time again to match up to God’s standards. His spiritual blindness was shown in his physical blindness later in the passage. Samson was confident in his own strength, of which the Israelite nation were also regularly guilty, assuming that their past blessings would continue into the future for ever and ever. This lazy, proud thinking relegated God out of the picture, which led to the repeated sin and downfall of the Israelite people, as well as the sin and downfall of Samson himself.

Maybe you can think of times when you have been lazy in your attitude to God too, proudly thinking that your weekly church attendance meant that God owed you one.

Jesus, on the other hand, was anything but proud. He obeyed his Father completely, even when it meant dying for us. Samson, through his death and with God by his side, saved the Israelite people for a short period of time from the Philistines. Jesus’ perfect death on the cross was the complete work; victory over death was completed at that point, and that gift of being welcomed into God’s family has been shared out; not just to a chosen people but to the entire world beyond.