W. Robert Godfrey

And there aren't any perfect judges.

Now, for your encouragement, the closest to a perfect judge in the book of Judges is Deborah.

Now, all of you women should read the book of Judges because I think there are more women of importance in the book of Judges than any other book of the Bible.

And numbers of them are really very positive.

There are a few negative ones.

We tend to remember Delilah.

She's not a role model.

We'll come back to her.

But it intrigued me as I got into studying the book of Judges that there are fascinating women who are largely neglected, like Aksa.

You know, I've never met an Aksa.

may not be the most mellifluous name to give a daughter, but she's a really fine role model of service to the Lord, the wife of Othniel, the daughter of Caleb.

And then there's Deborah, who really is terrific.

And of course, when I was in high school, I always wanted to hear over and over again the story of jail and her nail.

So there are these remarkable women, positive and negative, and the whole book is just a book full of fascinating figures and fascinating stories.

But as we'll see as we go along, we have to understand what's happening in the book as a whole

to really appreciate the message and the meaning of each part of the book.

And that's why I hope as we'll go along, this will be an adventure not only in figuring out the story of Samson and looking at the character of the book of Judges, but I hope it'll really be an encouragement for us as to how we ought to do Bible study.

because it distresses me the way in which many Protestants have moved away from a genuinely Protestant way of reading the Bible.

And what I mean by that is we turn the Bible into a kind of magic book.

You know, you just open it up and you find a verse and you apply it to yourself and that gives you meaning and hope.