W. Robert Godfrey

And the director of the opera had very, I thought, cleverly asked the leading rabbi of the city to write some notes to give opera goers a kind of Jewish look at Samson in the Old Testament.

And so I read that article and found it fascinating because the basic approach of the rabbi was to say the story of Samson is never read in the synagogue, neither in the regular Sabbath services nor in the special High Holy Day services.

And the reason for that is Samson is not regarded as a righteous man and his story is not inspiring.

And the rabbi did not put it this way.

He was much more elegant.

But basically, he said Samson was a bum.

And we don't read his story in official services because it is not a story to inspire righteous living.

And it really struck me very forcefully, this very negative look at Samson—

And as we get into the details of his life, we'll begin to understand why the rabbi thought that way.

There's a lot that is not to be emulated in the life of Samson.

But I couldn't help but think how different the rabbi's appraisal was from the appraisal of the book of Hebrews, where Samson is listed as one of the examples of faith.

And it got me thinking because I thought, here again, we are seeing a real contrast between rabbinical religion and apostolic religion.

The rabbis have one evaluation of Samson because of their approach to religion, which is based on achieved righteousness that we gain as individuals by the way we live.

and apostolic religion, which is all about the work of Christ and the gift of grace that reconciles sinners to God.

And that drew me then into the Samson story.

I wanted to think more particularly about how the apostles were reading the Samson story in contrast to the way in which the rabbis had been reading the Samson story.

And the more I got into the story, the more exciting I found it to be.

And the more complex it was in the way it was written and laid down for us in the Scripture.

I think sometimes, probably most of the time, most of us, when we're reading Old Testament history, we read through it for the facts and dates, sort of.

And we miss the literary structure, which is often very related to the real meaning of the story.