Learning Love From Samson and Delilah (Part 2)

Despite the fact that Samson's three recorded "love" relationships leave very little to be desired regarding an example to emulate, his third fling actually gives amazing insight into the key to genuine love. We have a cycle of Delilah asking Samson how he can be bound; he lies; she tries; he breaks loose. Then Delilah makes this statement: "How can you say, 'I love you,' when your heart is not with me?"

She sees an inconsistency between his saying, "I love you," and his lying. She diagnoses the problem with his inconsistency as related to the heart. It reminds me of Henry Krabbendam who I once heard say in his deep golden voice, "The heart of the problem is the problem of the heart."

Now never mind that the same thing could be said of Delilah, after all she is trying to betray him, but she really does get to the heart of the problem. If you look at the references to the heart in the OT you get the idea that the heart is a way of referring to your mission control center--the place in the core of your immaterial man that includes all of your thinking, willing, & feeling; and action comes from how you think, will, and feel. So we learn from Delilah that the kind of love that we want is one that will start in the heart. She wants Samson to think, will, and feel, about her in such a way that his actions are consistent with his profession of love towards her. Isn't that the kind of love we want to have? Isn't that the kind of love we want to give?

That is the kind of love God has toward us and the kind of love He calls us to and empowers believers to demonstrate in Christ by His Spirit.

Learning Love From Samson and Delilah (Part 1)

The Grateful Dead sang a song called "Samson and Delilah," then the Pointer Sisters had a song called "Fire" where they put Samson and Delilah in the same league as Romeo and Juliet, having a love they could not deny. Yep, the Biblical couple has been enshrined as an example of a "love" story. But what was their love like?


To see this love story you have to go to the book of Judges (hee hee!). I recently did a Valentines banquet and got quite a look when I said, "Let's turn to the book of Judges." Well, its a fun story. Basically, we first learn about Samson's kind of love in chapter 14:1 when he "sees" a Philistine woman and tells his parents to go and get her for him. He makes three critical errors in my opinion. First, he spurns his parents counsel. Second, he chooses a wife that will be incompatible spritually. And third, he makes his decision based purely on physical attraction. He says, "She looks good to me" (v. 3).


Let's see how that worked out. Well, He makes his inlaws mad by gambling with them over a riddle. His wife tries to get the answer from him by manipulation through saying he hates her (16a). He puts his parents above his wife (16b) saying, "I haven't even told my parents why would I tell you?" She then manipulates him with tears, crying for seven days (17), which he gives in to. She betrays him to her people (18a). He calls her a heifer (18b).


Samson then demonstrates that he has an anger problem by killing 30 men and taking their clothes to pay off his bet (19); he ties torches to the tails of 300 foxes that burn up the grain fields and olive orchards (15:4-5). The Philistines retaliate by burning his wife and father-in-law, so he eventually kills 1000 with a donkey's jawbone.


Well let's see if his next relationship is any better. Judges 16:1 says that he saw a prostitute and went in to her. Okay, physical based and immoral.


Finally, we get to Delilah. It actually says that Samson "loved" her (16:4). But what does that mean? Let's see. Chapter 16 tells the tale of Delilah being bribed by the Philistines to find out the secret of Samson's strength so that they might know how to bind him to afflict him. Then there is this humorous cycle where she asks him, he tells her a lie, she tries what he tells her, the Philistines lie in wait to ambush him, whatever she tries fails, and he breaks the bonds. As you read the story you can just imagine the Philistines hiding in their house and seeing him awake breaking his bonds and them scurrying out the door.


So up to now we have relationships based on deceit, poor communication, favoring parents over spouse, immorality, majoring on the physical, name-calling, anger, manipulation, bribery--almost everything I've faced in marriage counseling. But I also see that every one of these areas could easily be a temptation for me. I'll explore that later.