Half of my class is at the district track meet today, so we couldn't do normal work. Instead, for the first one and a half hours my 7 students and I read the Biblical account of Samson together, stopping to discuss it as we went along. I know, I know, it was a completely self-serving act, but I enjoyed it. Hopefully they did too.
I left convinced, and a few of them as well, that Samson's strength was only loosely related to the length of his hair. It seemed to serve more as a symbol of his commitedness to God, and the act of cutting it (which he knew Delilah would do) was symbolic of his turning his back on God. It was after this that Judges says that God's Spirit left him, but he did not realize it. Even after his shaving, he did not realize his strength was gone. If he knew his strength was in his hair he would have known immediately, wouldn't he?
Also rather interesting is the fact that each time Samson aocomplished a great feat of a strength it says, "The Lord came upon him in power", as if he was not strong before. Is it possible that he did not have super-human strength as is commonly thought? His strength seemed to come directly from the hand of God as specific times.
Two more things:
1. When he brings down the stadium in the end, his motives were not to glorify God. He prays for strength to destroy the Phillistines in order to avenge the gouging of his eyes, not the avenging of God's honor.
2. His story is one of continual sin, but begins and ends with God's promise to use him to deliver his children from the Phillistines. I find it fascinating when God breaks His own laws through his children to accomplish his purposes. It was sin for him to marry a foreigner, but it says God told him to. It was sin to murder, but had he not murdered those men he would not have been imprisoned, and had that not happened he would not have been able to destroy the Phillistine-empire. As in many cases, God suspended his laws to accomplish his purposes. Sometimes our faith is strange.
I left convinced, and a few of them as well, that Samson's strength was only loosely related to the length of his hair. It seemed to serve more as a symbol of his commitedness to God, and the act of cutting it (which he knew Delilah would do) was symbolic of his turning his back on God. It was after this that Judges says that God's Spirit left him, but he did not realize it. Even after his shaving, he did not realize his strength was gone. If he knew his strength was in his hair he would have known immediately, wouldn't he?
Also rather interesting is the fact that each time Samson aocomplished a great feat of a strength it says, "The Lord came upon him in power", as if he was not strong before. Is it possible that he did not have super-human strength as is commonly thought? His strength seemed to come directly from the hand of God as specific times.
Two more things:
1. When he brings down the stadium in the end, his motives were not to glorify God. He prays for strength to destroy the Phillistines in order to avenge the gouging of his eyes, not the avenging of God's honor.
2. His story is one of continual sin, but begins and ends with God's promise to use him to deliver his children from the Phillistines. I find it fascinating when God breaks His own laws through his children to accomplish his purposes. It was sin for him to marry a foreigner, but it says God told him to. It was sin to murder, but had he not murdered those men he would not have been imprisoned, and had that not happened he would not have been able to destroy the Phillistine-empire. As in many cases, God suspended his laws to accomplish his purposes. Sometimes our faith is strange.
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