Devotion - Thursday, August 30

I am reading the chapters of The Book of Judges that tell of Samson.  The stories of Samson we are most likely to remember are toward the end.  Some of the information early in the 14th chapter, we tend to overlook.  They aren't the kind of stories teachers of children like to address in Sunday Church School.

Samson wants a wife from among the Philistines.  It is the Philistines who have dominion over Israel.  Samson's strength will be used against the Philistines - in those stories which are told to small children on Sunday mornings.  His father and mother would prefer he take a wife from among their own kinsmen, but they do as their son requests.

Then comes the wedding banquet.  A celebration which lasts for seven days. 

During the banquet, Samson puts a riddle before his Philistine guests.  It is a riddle they would never be able to solve, without help.  So they get Samson's new wife to find the answer and tell them.

When Samson looses the wager associated with the riddle, in order to pay up he goes to a neighboring village and murders thirty men, taking their festival garments.  

This is not the kind of story which is easy for small children to understand.  It is a story difficult for pastors with thirty years experience.

What this thirty-year veteran of Biblical teaching would tell you about this story is that it is a perfect example of how honest the Bible really is.  Unlike slick, well rehearsed peddlers of piety, the Bible makes known the complexity of human life and the complexity of the servants of God.

Samson is one of God's Judges.  But Samson's actions reveal that Samson is very much a real person, human in that his service of God occurs among and around actions which are less than ideal.

God uses such persons.  This is our confidence that God can also use us.  Are we not more aware of our human failings than we are of our divine calling?  Learn to see more than the former; it is the latter which denotes us as children of God and disciples of Christ.