W. Robert Godfrey

This is the pattern of spiritual decline that we're going to see here in the book of Judges.

And all of this, you see, is very intentional.

But if you don't see the big picture, you might not notice that.

And you might say, well, why is this crazy Samson in this story?

He does one bad thing after another.

Yeah, it's showing the spiritual decline of Israel.

We're beginning a study today on Samson in the book of Judges.

And I think many of us come to thinking about Samson as a story we think we know.

We might think we know it because there have been a lot of cultural adaptations of the Samson story, as well as the story in the Bible itself.

Probably some of us in Sunday school studied the Samson story and we remember how strong Samson was.

We remember Samson and the lion.

We remember Samson and the jawbone of the ass.

We remember Samson and Delilah.

And yet I think we'll find as we get into the Samson story, and particularly as we look at it in the context of the book of Judges,

that there's a lot about Samson we've missed and that there's a lot of profit, spiritual profit, to the Samson story as we really dig into it.

And that's what I hope we'll do together.

My own interest in Samson started a couple of years ago when I went to the opera in San Diego and they were performing Samson's Samson and Delilah.

And as we were sitting, waiting for the opera to begin, we had the opera program.

And there were opera notes.

And the San Diego Opera receives a lot of its support from Jewish donors.