"You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant" (a paraphrase of Judges 15:18).

Samson was the strongest man alive. But Samson was not particularly admirable. In fact, he was rather crude, with a weakness for women and a taste for riddles. He would have been an ordinary man except for the gift of God. The Lord gave him great strength in order to deliver Israel from Philistine oppression. In the verse above, Samson rightly acknowledges that while God chose to use him, the "great deliverance" came from the Lord.

If Samson were alive today, he would certainly attract a lot of attention. People would envy him and try to copy his strength. Or he might be treated as a curiosity and pushed to the edges of normal society. Paul writes: "For who sees anything different in you?" (a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 4:7).

In other words, if God gave us our abilities, our knowledge, and our gifts, how can we boast about them? John the Baptist declared, "A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven" (John 3:27). He was not troubled that Jesus was gaining more disciples than he was. On the contrary, he rejoiced in it. This was from the Lord!

James warned against "jealousy and selfish ambition" (James 3:14), writing that such attitudes reflect wisdom that is "earthly, unspiritual, demonic" (3:15). On the other hand, heavenly wisdom recognizes that every good gift comes from God (James 1:17), so there is no place for boasting or envy.

Friends, as believers we are simply called to be faithful stewards of what God has given us (1 Corinthians 4:2) — nothing more, nothing less. The world goads us to strive for more, for better, for greater; yet Scripture warns us against selfish ambition.

If we are poor, ordinary, and overlooked, Scripture tells us that the lowly brother can boast in his exaltation, for from that position we are moved to trust God all the more (James 1:9; 2:5). Scripture warns us against envy.

Therefore, whether we have a single talent or ten, let us simply strive to be faithful with what we have been given. Let the person with one not envy the person with ten. Let the person with ten not lord it over the person with one. We ought neither to envy nor to boast about what God has freely given. Instead, let us celebrate the grace, providence, and wisdom of God.

After all, we do not strive for earthly talents and treasures, which pass away, but for heavenly reward that lasts forever. So, my friends, whatever your lot, may you be found neither envious nor boastful — simply faithful!

AI-Expanded Reflection

Judges 15:18–19 is one of the more surprising moments in Samson's story. Having just struck down a thousand men with a donkey's jawbone, he collapses from thirst and cries out to God — the first recorded prayer of his life — and God splits open a hollow place to give him water. The strongest man in Israel could not produce a drink for himself. The place was named En-hakkore, "the spring of him who called."

The comment's assessment of Samson's character is fair, and Scripture is equally frank about it. Yet Hebrews 11:32 lists him among those who "through faith conquered kingdoms." Samson's inclusion is a reminder that God's gifts are not rewards for character, and that His purposes advance even through flawed servants — which is exactly why boasting is excluded. Paul's question in 1 Corinthians 4:7 was addressed to a church divided by comparison, and the comment's application of it is apt: envy and boasting are two symptoms of the same forgetfulness about where our gifts came from.

"His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord," who was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines (a paraphrase of Judges 14:4).

Samson wants to marry a Philistine woman. God had prohibited Israel from intermarrying with the peoples of Canaan, lest they be led into idolatry. Yet here we learn that this arrangement was by God's design. This example shows that God can use even sinful human intentions to achieve His divine purposes.

God used the sinful intentions of Joseph's brothers to bring about a great deliverance of Israel from famine and to lead them into Egypt, where they would be kept distinct as a people for hundreds of years until they grew into a great nation.

God used a hardened Pharaoh to display His great power in the Exodus. He used Judas' treachery to bring about redemption through the crucifixion of Christ.

Remember, too, that in Job's case God drew Satan's attention to Job and set the limits within which Satan afflicted him, so that we might better understand the extent of God's sovereignty.

Whether we assign direct or indirect agency, God was clearly in control of every event under heaven, whether bad or good.

Before the protest comes that God does not and cannot cause sin, it would be wise to understand what is meant by sin. In Romans 3:23 we read that all have sinned "and fall short of the glory of God." Sin is thus defined as falling short of God's glory. What then is God's glory? Is God's glory not His person, His will, and His works? In other words, God Himself defines what glory is. His deeds define what glory does.

It is not the other way around. Glory does not define God. There was no abstract idea called "glory" that existed before God. Likewise, there was no ideal of good that existed before God. Otherwise God would not be the First Cause, the Uncaused Cause. He would not be God. So the psalmist declares that the nearness of God is his good (cf. Psalm 73:28).

Let us understand, then, that the reason God cannot cause anyone to sin has to do not with what is caused but with who is causing it. Normally, human sacrifice is sin, yet Abraham was willing to obey God's command concerning Isaac. When God commands it, it is not sin. Normally, taking life is sin, yet not when God commanded judgment on the Amalekites. Indeed, in that case, refusal would have been disobedience.

So when we read that Samson's interest in marrying the Philistine woman was "from the Lord," even if Samson had sinful intentions, for which he is responsible, the outcome itself cannot be considered sin, for nothing "from the Lord" is sinful.

As difficult as this is to grasp, since it involves the joint truths of human responsibility and divine sovereignty, it is important to understand so that we do not misunderstand the character and work of God. Solomon expressed it this way: "The plans of the heart belong to man," but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord; "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps"; "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord" (Proverbs 16:1, 9, 33).

To these proverbs I would simply add that what God does must not be confused with what man does. What may be sinful for man can never be sinful for God. It is the difference between the Creator and the created, between the Lawgiver and those for whom the laws were given (cf. James 4:11–12).

AI-Expanded Reflection

Judges 14:4 is one of several places where Scripture affirms both human responsibility and divine purpose in the same event without resolving the tension philosophically. Samson's demand — "get her for me, for she is right in my eyes" (14:3) — uses the very phrase that condemns the era ("everyone did what was right in his own eyes," 21:25). Samson acts out of desire; God works through it against the Philistines. Neither fact cancels the other, just as with Joseph's brothers (Genesis 50:20) and the crucifixion (Acts 2:23; 4:27–28).

On the comment's argument about God's commands and the nature of goodness, see the notes at #1982 and #1992. Many theologians would agree with its central claim — that God is the standard of good and is not subject to a law above Himself — while adding that God's commands flow from His own unchanging character rather than from bare will, which is why Scripture can say that God "cannot lie" (Titus 1:2) and "cannot deny himself" (2 Timothy 2:13). On that view, God's freedom and His goodness are never in conflict. Christians across traditions affirm James 4:12, which the comment cites: "There is only one lawgiver and judge" — and therefore caution against presuming to sit in judgment on Him.

"The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him..." (Judges 14:6; cf. 13:25; 14:19; 15:14).

Repeatedly the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and gave him superhuman strength, so that he could tear a lion apart or kill a thousand Philistines with nothing but a jawbone. As amazing as Samson's power was, he was also repeatedly powerless to resist sexual temptation. As Solomon, who was himself not immune, wrote of the adulterous woman, "many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng" (Proverbs 7:26).

So we have both the strongest man who ever lived and the wisest man who ever lived found morally weak-kneed before the lure of forbidden relationships. But my comment today is not about that danger, which every man must recognize, but about the Spirit's empowerment of believers. For the Spirit empowered Samson and gave wisdom to Solomon, yet both fell morally. The Spirit did not give Samson the strength to overcome Delilah's enticement, or Solomon the wisdom to reject the influence of his foreign wives. Both were allowed to fall morally and spiritually.

Friends, do you think the Spirit will keep you from making morally wrong decisions? Will the Spirit make the morally right decisions for you? I don't see this promised anywhere in Scripture. Yes, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But I do not believe this means He will produce these things in us apart from our participation, as He made Samson strong or Solomon wise. Augustine, the famous theologian, longed for exactly this from God, praying, "Give what you command, and command what you will."

Can God produce righteousness in us? Certainly! He did this when He saved us by giving us the faith to believe a Gospel we would never have embraced on our own. Is He obligated to keep overriding our wills to ensure that we always make morally right choices? I believe not, and He doesn't.

In fact, God has allowed a battle zone within us between the influence of the Spirit and the influence of our own sinful nature: the desires of the flesh and of the Spirit are opposed to each other, "to keep you from doing the things you want to do" (a paraphrase of Galatians 5:17).

So let us understand: while there is no effort on our part, so to speak, in our salvation, for it is the gift of God, there is definitely effort required to follow the Spirit in obedience to God's Word. How much effort? Consider Hebrews 12:4: in our struggle against sin, we "have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood."

That much effort! It's like our marriage vow — "till death do us part." I am reminded of Jesus' command to His followers: deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Him (cf. Luke 9:23).

AI-Expanded Reflection

Samson's life is one of the most tragic in Scripture precisely because it shows gifting and character pulling in opposite directions. He was set apart as a Nazirite from birth (13:5), yet he broke nearly every part of that vow — touching a dead lion's carcass (14:8–9), holding a drinking feast (14:10), and finally revealing the secret of his hair. His strength came from God, but his choices were his own. The narrator's most heartbreaking line comes when Delilah wakes him the last time: "he did not know that the Lord had left him" (16:20).

Yet Samson's story does not end there. Blind and imprisoned, he prayed, "O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once" (16:28), and God answered. Hebrews 11:32 lists Samson among the heroes of faith. The comment's teaching on the Christian's struggle is well grounded: the Spirit's work in believers is real, yet Scripture consistently calls believers to cooperate with it — "work out your own salvation... for it is God who works in you" (Philippians 2:12–13). Christians describe the relationship between grace and effort in different ways, but all agree that the Spirit's presence does not make the fight against sin unnecessary, and that God's grace reaches even those who have failed badly and turn back to Him.

When your words come true, Manoah asked, "what is to be the child's manner of life" and his mission? (a paraphrase of Judges 13:12).

I like how Manoah interacted with the angel. To use the same illustration I used before, let's assume the angel was not shining and glorious with wings, but a manifestation that people could easily mistake for a mortal man, bad breath and all.

Scripture tells us to test everything and hold fast to what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and to test the spirits (1 John 4:1). But Manoah did not explicitly test the angel's words. He did not ask for a miracle, or for a record of prophetic accuracy — where 100% is required.

Manoah received this word from a man-like messenger and seemingly accepted it, but I think there was an implicit test in his actions.

The angel spoke to their inability to have children. That is not a miracle; it could just be local gossip.

The angel gave a prediction that, if it came true, would be a great sign from God.

But Manoah did not reject the message before it was tested; he listened. He was not contentious or needlessly argumentative. He was, if you will, quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger (James 1:19). He was silent, and so appeared wise (Proverbs 17:28).

The tests were built into the word itself. If it came true, it would pass the tests: very improbable to happen on its own, foretold in advance, and good, and so to be held fast.

He listened first, allowed the tests to come later, and, just in case it did come true, asked for more direction.

Test and hold fast to the good (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Do not despise prophecies (1 Thessalonians 5:20). Be quick to listen, and like Mary when she heard the words of the angel, treasure them, pondering them in your heart (Luke 2:19).

AI-Expanded Reflection

The chapter has a quiet contrast the comment's reading can take further. The angel appears first to Manoah's wife, who is never named, and she immediately reports it — even noting that the visitor looked like an angel of God, very awesome (13:6). Manoah prays for the man to come again and teach them, and when he does, the angel returns first to the woman. And at the climax, after the angel ascends in the flame of the offering, Manoah panics that they will die for having seen God; it is his wife who reasons them out of it — if the Lord meant to kill us, He would not have accepted our offering or told us these things (13:22–23). The patient, reasoning faith the comment admires is shown most clearly in her.

Manoah's question about the angel's name draws the answer that it is "wonderful" — beyond comprehension (13:18). The same Hebrew root appears in Isaiah 9:6, "Wonderful Counselor," and many interpreters have read the figure here as another appearance of the angel of the Lord who speaks as God (see the discussion at #1734).

The comment's instinct — listen before judging, and let a word prove itself over time — is sound. Deuteronomy 18:22 builds a similar test into the Law, and Gamaliel applies a version of it to the apostles in Acts 5:38–39.

Samson tells his father to get a particular Philistine woman for him, since she's "the right one" — though his parents don't realize this was actually from the LORD, seeking an occasion against the Philistines, who ruled Israel at the time (a paraphrase of Judges 14:3–4).

I'm reading again one of the Bible's most famous stories, known even beyond believers wherever the Gospel is preached. I know others have already shared on this, but I want to emphasize the same point once more — God's sovereignty. We regularly face decisions where we wish the Lord would show up plainly, in a vision or dream, to tell us exactly which way to go. I believe every believer wishes for this, non-believers too — it's exactly why divination has remained one of the oldest professions in human history. Even in evangelical circles, someone claiming a prophetic gift tends to draw considerable attention. Our intense desire to know the future is really rooted in a lack of faith in the Lord who already holds everything in His hands. Our job isn't to seek knowledge of the future, but to remain obedient and faithful regardless of what it holds. We make decisions with good or selfish intentions, but He intends them for good regardless, exactly as we see in today's text. Let's soak ourselves in His love letter, so that the more we know Him, the deeper our awe of Him grows.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The detail this comment opens with — Samson's parents not realizing his marriage choice came from the LORD — is worth sitting with as its own quiet reassurance. God's sovereign purposes here operate entirely underneath the surface of what looks, from every visible angle, like an ordinary young man's poor romantic decision. That's a genuinely useful counterpoint to this comment's own observation about craving visible divine confirmation before acting — Samson's parents never received any such confirmation, and God's purpose moved forward regardless, hidden inside a choice that, on the surface, looked like nothing more than youthful stubbornness.

God's will in the life of Samson

A childless woman from the clan of the Danites is visited by the angel of the LORD, who tells her she'll become pregnant with a son — she's to avoid wine, fermented drink, and anything unclean, since the boy will be a Nazirite from the womb, his head never touched by a razor, destined to begin delivering Israel from the Philistines (a paraphrase of Judges 13:2–5).

Samson was born miraculously to a barren couple specifically to accomplish God's purposes. In his life, we see both God's sovereign will and His permissive will at work. God chose Samson before birth — not because of any foreseen goodness in him, since his life was full of immoral decisions, but purely to accomplish His own purpose. This is sovereign will, based on nothing Samson did or said. Yet even while chosen for this specific purpose, Samson still made his own decisions about most of his life. This free will doesn't exist outside God's sovereignty — God permits it, even when the choices made are bad. The results of our decisions aren't necessarily approved by God as good; He simply allows them. Samson made many poor choices, particularly regarding women — yet even through this permitted freedom, God used them for His greater, unshakable purpose.

We see this same interplay elsewhere too. When Joseph confronts his brothers, he tells them not to be afraid, since though they intended to harm him, God intended it for good, to save many lives through what was now happening (a paraphrase of Genesis 50:19–20). The brothers acted on their own free will selling Joseph into slavery, and remain responsible for it — God's permissive will allowed the act, but His sovereign will had a far greater purpose in view than what they'd intended.

Christ's own life shows this too — God's sovereign will, even before Jesus's birth, was that He would suffer and die for redemption (Isaiah 53). God allowed human wickedness, freely exercised, to accomplish this very end through the crucifixion. God's sovereignty never removes our responsibility for our own actions, since He doesn't "make" anyone sin — our own sinful nature does that.

In the book of Job, Job finally responds to the LORD, acknowledging that God can do all things, that no purpose of His can be thwarted, and admitting he'd spoken of things he didn't understand, too wonderful for him to know (a paraphrase of Job 42:1–3). No one can thwart God's plan — He sovereignly chooses and anoints people to fulfill His purposes, despite their human tendency toward evil.

So many of us ask what God's will actually is for our lives. He's already revealed it — urging us, in view of His mercy, to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to Him, our true and proper worship, refusing to conform to this world's pattern but instead being transformed by the renewing of our minds, so we can test and approve what His good, pleasing, and perfect will actually is (a paraphrase of Romans 12:1–2).

Let's conform to God's will by continually transforming our minds through ongoing immersion in His Word.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The sovereign-will-versus-permissive-will framework this comment lays out so carefully is worth extending with one detail that sharpens Samson's own case specifically — his very last recorded act (pulling down the Philistine temple, killing more in his death than in his entire life, Judges 16:30) happens as a direct answer to his own prayer for strength one final time, meaning even Samson's final, most consequential act was neither purely self-willed nor purely divinely scripted in isolation from his own choice, but a genuine collaboration between his freely-offered request and God's sovereign decision to grant it. That's perhaps the clearest single moment in his entire story where this comment's sovereign-will-and-permissive-will framework converges into one visible, simultaneous act.

This might just be my own assertion, but I've always understood part of the Jewish objection to Jesus in the New Testament as resistance to the idea that God would lower and limit Himself to human form. But it seems like, more than once now, people in the Old Testament see an angel and assume they're going to die — either because they'd seen an angel at all, or, in this case, because Samson's parents mistook the angel for the LORD Himself. So it seems like they were actually willing to accept the idea of God appearing in human form.

Yujin replies... Jews wouldn't necessarily take offense at God appearing in human form, because this was fairly common in the Old Testament. Often, the designation "the angel of the LORD" is itself a reference to God appearing in human form. Many scholars have suggested this isn't God the Father, but rather the pre-incarnate God the Son — Jesus Christ, before His birth in Bethlehem. If that's right, Samson's parents weren't actually mistaken about who they'd seen, and neither was Abraham, when the three visitors came to announce the birth of Isaac and the coming destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The specific moment this comment references is worth adding: when the angel ascends in the flame of their sacrificial altar, Manoah and his wife realize exactly who they've been speaking with, and Manoah says they're certainly going to die, since they've seen God (a paraphrase of Judges 13:20–22). If the "pre-incarnate Christ" reading Yujin mentions is correct, that theory has a striking New Testament echo: John writes that no one has ever actually seen God the Father, but that the Son has made Him known (a paraphrase of John 1:18) — meaning every visible appearance of God throughout the Old Testament may have specifically been the Son, consistently, long before Bethlehem. It's a genuinely debated theory among scholars, not a settled consensus, but if true, Manoah's terror and Abraham's hospitality were both, in a sense, encounters with the same person believers would later come to know by name.