The Riddle of Samson
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What spiritual decline does the book of Judges illustrate?
The book of Judges demonstrates how God rescued the Israelites from their rebellion. Even one of their famous judges was rebellious.
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.
God used a series of judges to free Israel from the oppressive nations that surrounded them. Israel rebelled, a nation would conquer, and a judge would rise up to save them. Welcome to the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind as we begin a weekend study on the highlights, or you might say the lowlights, of a judge named Samson. Unwise, deceptive, worldly, and full of lust, Samson didn't model the traits of a godly man, yet he was used for God's purposes. And over the coming Saturdays, Ligonier's chairman, W. Robert Godfrey, will help us to make sense of these contrasts. And we'll learn that this is far more than a fascinating children's bedtime story about a man with long hair and supernatural strength.
If you'd like to own the complete series, it is available for you right now when you give a donation at renewingyourmind.org in support of this daily outreach. In addition to the DVD, we'll add the series and study guide to your learning library in the free Ligonier app. Well, let's begin with a message titled, The Riddle of Samson.
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.
Why is Samson considered a rebellious judge?
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. 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.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What spiritual decline does the book of Judges illustrate?
0:00–2:07
2
Why is Samson considered a rebellious judge?
2:07–9:03
3
What contrasting views exist about Samson's character?
9:03–15:11
4
How does the story of Samson relate to the overall theme of Judges?
15:11–21:00
5
What lessons can we learn from the life of Samson?
21:00–23:45
6
How does the evaluation of Samson differ between rabbinical and apostolic perspectives?
23:45–26:13