Samson Bringing Down the Temple of Dagon, by Gustave Dore, wood engraving, 1866.
Samson is the Bible’s superhero, with hair for a cape. This man can do incredible things. The Holy Spirit gave him super-human strength: “and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him” Judges 14:6. But Samson’s motives were poor. He was not so much a godly man as a vengeful man, explaining “As they did unto me, so have I done unto them” Judges 15:11. But God used Samson, even with his petty, vengeful ways: “for the Lord sought an occasion against the Philistines, for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel” Judges 14:4.
And think of the things Samson did! He killed a lion by grabbing its upper and lower jaws and ripping the beast apart. He killed 30 Philistines just to steal their clothes. He killed a thousand Philistines by blunt force trauma, clubbing them to death one after another with a bone. He pulled up the huge gates and gate posts from the walled city of Gaza and carried them up the hill. He pushed over the columns of a temple and killed another three thousand Philistines. He captured 300 foxes, tied their tails together, fastened torches between the pairs, and set them loose to run through the Philistine’s fields and burn down all their crops.
–But wait! He captured 300 foxes? How? That’s not an amazing feat of strength. That is an amazing feat of hunting! What hunter could EVER locate, much less capture alive, 300 foxes? These are solitary, lonesome animals. Even people living in fox country don’t see more than one or two at a time. God must have SENT those 300 foxes to Samson, just as he sent thousands of animals to fill Noah’s Ark.
Imagine a book like this: it starts with a God who invents … well, EVERYTHING. Then we meet the first man and woman and they start a family. There is a talking snake—and later a talking donkey. Bad people, good people, and a race of giants. A flood that deletes everything and a universal do-over using only those drifting in the world’s first boat, a floating zoo. There is the Tower of Babel and the birth of languages. There is slavery in idol-worshipping Egypt, slavery that would soon be abolished through a series of outrageous plagues that pick off and destroy Egypt’s idols one by one. Rivers and seas are parted so a nation can walk through on dry land. A boy kills a giant with a slingshot. There are kings with staggering wealth. Dynasties and tragedies. Prophets who can predict the future. And a superhero that can fight a thousand men at one time.
This is an amazing work of literature. What a story! If you did not know it was non-fiction, it might sound like a Greek epic. But the Bible is different. Even if we cannot convince some people that the Bible is true, we can show it does not contain the glaring errors common in other ancient writings.
For example, professor Edward Blick of the University of Oklahoma notes that the sacred writings of the Hindus state that the moon is 50,000 leagues higher than the sun and shines by its own light, the earth is flat, triangular, and composed of seven layers, one of which is honey, another sugar, a third butter, and a fourth wine. And the layers of the flat earth balance on the heads of elephants.
All of that might have sounded plausible a thousand years ago. But technology has allowed us to observe the makeup of the earth. It is neither flat nor balanced on the heads of giant elephants. The Bible does not explain the laws of gravity or the forces that allow a moving sphere of a planet to maintain its position in orbit. But at the same time, the Bible does not contain glaring errors about astronomy, the origins of the universe, or other areas of science. This incredible, epic story—a historical record, really—reports the truth of God’s interaction with his people and the amazing miracles he has performed in order to win our love and affection.
Just as God sought a confrontation with the Philistines who were oppressing his people, God seeks an opportunity to deliver you and me. Do you need him to defeat the Philistines in your life? Cry out to him as the Hebrews did:
“Then the LORD said, ‘I have observed the misery of My people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I know about their sufferings’” Exodus 3:7.
God, the amazing author of our story, the hero who rescues his people, knows when you are suffering. He sees when you are oppressed. Beg him to rescue you and yours! And study the word he provided to set you free.
ΑΩ
Household Words: 