Posted by Lance 
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I decided to start another series called Character Highlights, where I’ll post an article that analyzes, discusses, and essentially highlights key passages dealing with a certain Biblical character. While I don’t profess to be a theological scholar or even a talented writer, I think it might be interesting to share my take on certain characters from the Bible, as it will perhaps spark up a new perspective within the readers! I’ll try to lace the articles with as much humor as possible, to lighten up the mood, while ensuring to enforce the biblical backbone of scripture.
I figured I’d begin this series with one of my favorites – Samson. As a kid, I’d always be asked what my favorite part of the Bible was. Well, being like any child who is fascinated with superheroes and comic books, I naturally chose the most hulk-ish, superpowered character I could think of – namely, Samson.
For those of you who may not know there story of Samson, here’s a quick summary. The story is found in the book of Judges, chapters 13 – 16. It’s about this dude, who was born in Israel a LONG time ago. His parents were cool cats, but they couldn’t have kids cause the mom was sterile. But don’t worry, an angel from God came down and was like, “Yo guys, you seem like pretty chill people, so I’ll give you a son. But not just any son, he’s gonna be RIPPED and all the ladies will love him.” So obviously this made the mom and dad super happy. But there was a catch – “Your son is gonna be a superhero, but he’s gotta leave his hair shaggy, and has to stay away from unclean stuff.” The unclean stuff is kinda like telling us to stay away from drinkin and drugs.
So Samson grew up super strong, and had really long hair. When he was, I dunno, a young adult, he met a lady friend. But she was a bad girl – well, bad by Israel’s standards. The way I look at it, is he was just “evangidating” (if you don’t know what this means, then keep it that way). But no, even though she may have been a “bad girl” or a bad influence, God used her as a means for Samson to interact with the Phillistines. The Phillistines are like… hmm let me see. Boston Red Sox = Israelites, New York Yankees = Phillistines. Now I’m gonna skip through a bunch of other stuff, like Samson rippin apart a lion with his bare hands, or him beating up 30 Philli’s and stealing their clothes, or him taking on like 1000 men with a donkey’s jaw bone for a weapon. Yeah, I’ll skip the good stuff, and move on to Samson and Delilah.
So Delilah is his new lady friend. She was a Phillistine too, and all the Philli’s wanted Samson dead. But they had NO chance of killing him, cause he destroyed 1000 of them like nothing. So they decided to bring out the big guns, his kyrptonite, if you want. They forced, or bribed her, to find out Samson’s weakness. (Typical, women are always trouble).
So night after night, when they were sleeping together, she’d ask Samson to tell her his secret (nagg nag nag nag). And Samson, being the cunning, clever dude he is, kept on joking around with her, telling her the wrong things. But eventually, she pulled out the ace of spades, “Samson, if you loved me, you’d tell me.” (Judges 16:15). Well, that did him in. He caved like the Flintstones, and told her everything. She then turns around and cuts his hair off, making him a weakling, and the Phillistines are able to capture him.
Later on, they gouge out his eyes, make him a prisoner, and chain him up to some pillars at some Philli party. Its like, the Yankees won the world series, and they force Manny Ramirez to sit in at the after party. BUT, there’s a happy ending – sort of. Since there are like thousands of Phillistines at this party, Samson prays to God asking for his strength back. God is like, “yeah ok Samson.” and gives him a little bit of strength back. He then busts down the pillars, and kills all the Phillistines. BOO YA. But Samson dies.
Ok. Now Let’s Look a Little Deeper.
So, cool story eh? Too bad the superhero dies, but this isn’t a fairy tale. But let’s take a look at some of the themes here, and maybe twist it around a little to apply to today.
Now none of us are jacked superheroes, that can beat up a thousand men with a bone. But let’s compare Samson to a plain old every-day Christian. This is pretty reasonable, I think, if we look at this through a spiritual lens – Christians are children of God, so they’ve been set apart by God, in a sense. So yeah, Christians are pretty much superheroes! (Ok, now all the non-christians reading this are like… “arrogant pigs”) No no, I’m not saying Christians can beat up or are better than non-Christians. Just making a comparison for the sake of the following allegory.
Now, sometimes young Christian men, or even just guys in general, allow their eyes to fall on, “pretty ladies”. Now, I know myself, I’ve had a few Delilah’s throughout my life, but we’ll leave those specific cases out of this article. Also, if you’re a young lady reading this, I’m not trying to say that women are the ones to blame here – it goes both ways! Guys can also be Delilah’s.
Anyways, what I’m getting at here, is that Samson relationship with his first wife (who was a Philistine) was used by God to carry out his plan. Now, I’m not sure if Samson saw things that way - but it was God’s plan. Now, we can apply that to nowadays: Sometimes guys or girls, date people with the intentions of converting, or changing, the other person. Sometimes, evangidating works – but only if it’s in God’s plan. The bible clearly states do NOT be yolked (or don’t hook up with) chicks who aren’t on an equal level as you. So if you’re a young Christian guy – stay away from the bad girls.
Anyways, moving on – we see that once Samson is with Delilah, there’s a powerful symbolism that surfaces with the image of Samson’s hair. She’s trying to discover his weakness, and go FURTHER with him, and she keeps pressuring him to tell her what his secret is. Now, Samson is a pretty solid dude. And I’m guessing he could have any girl he wanted – now if he’s with Delilah, I’m guessing she’s got all the tools she needs to persuade him – if you know what I mean. Now notice carefully here – after she asks the first few times, Samson doesn’t immediately cave. Rather, he – watch this – COMPROMISES. He begins telling her “Tie me up with these straps”, or “Put my hair in a loom” . See he’s not giving in completely, but he is compromising ever so slightly.
And that’s what I want to illustrate here – when the devil tempts you to sin, he’s not going to say, “You should smoke that entire joint” or “you should get SMASHED” tonight, or even more relevantly, “You should have sex with that girl tonight!” No, you’re going to be tempted with much less serious temptations like, “Oh just have a puff” or “Oh, one drink won’t hurt” or, “Oh, that’s not really sex…”
I entitled this article, “Samson – Hero or Average Joe”. See Samson was a hero – and in the end, killed thousands of Phillistines. Now, it may just be me – but I never got any indication that Samson had much character, or admirable qualities. If you read the story closely, in fact, it seems like Samson is always acting with his own wants and desires in mind. He never resists temptation, and always acts irrationally. Yes, God gave him a gift, and he used that gift – but suffered due to his giving in to temptation. See, Christians are given a gift, and unless we use that gift for God, and clear away all the garbage that gets in the way, we may end up not as heroes, but as tragic heros, where in the end, we don’t live happily ever after like superman would, but rather, we end up dying as a consequence to our sin, like Samson.
In summary, if you don’t get anything from reading this, just keep in mind that its the compromise that the devil hits you with, and don’t allow those women to get in the way. They always trippin.
LT
