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I hate to draw hasty conclusions about someone I’ve never met. Even when reading books by confirmed heretics, I always wonder whether they were just having a bad day and, if they had it to do over again, would say things differently.
However, after reading Judges, I’m convinced Samson was without excuse. He was the worst kind of jock: He killed anyone who bothered him, got any girl he wanted, and suffered few consequences until the end of his life. By then, I was almost rooting for the Philistines.
However, contrasting his moral vapidity, the story of his miraculous birth in Judges 13 is full of glory and wonder. The supernatural quality of the announcement is rivaled only by the declaration of Isaac’s birth to Abraham and Sarah (Gen. 18), and is startling in its similarity to the annunciation of our Lord’s birth to Mary (Luke 1). But this suits the historical narrative of Judges, as the glory of God is placed alongside the lusts of men, often without commentary.
Throughout the Samson narrative, his inability to control his lusts (Judg. 14) is starkly contrasted to the presence of God with him. Even Samson’s forbidden desire to marry a pagan Philistine woman is used by God: “And Samson said to his father, ‘Get her for me, for she pleases me well.’ But his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord—that He was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines” (Judg. 14:3b–4a).
My feelings about Samson are explored in great depth in a modern Samson story, told in the movie The Apostle. Robert Duvall plays a man called by God to preach in the Pentecostal tradition. But alternating between his desire to share the Gospel and preach the Bible are his lust for women and his violent temper. The turning point in the movie comes when he takes a baseball bat (the jawbone of an ass?) and, drunk and jealous, kills his ex-wife’s boyfriend. But this sends him into greater blessing, including planting a growing church and beginning a successful radio ministry. Like Samson, he eventually goes to prison for his crime, but there his ministry to the inmates is powerful, and hundreds look to him for guidance.
Surely we are more like Samson than we want to admit. In the middle of prayer, we find ourselves in lust. We argue with our spouses and abuse our children before, during, and after our weekly Bible studies with our friends. And how much more of the truth of God do we have compared to Samson? Fifty more books of the Bible? If the story of Samson does not humble us and send us to the feet of our Lord, seeking forgiveness and grace to live with holy consistency, then surely prison and the miller’s wheel cannot be far away.