W. Robert Godfrey

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.

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.