Year 4, Day 275: Judges 14

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Father

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  We get our identity through Him.  When the Father is in our life, obedience becomes clear.

Samson is a great character to study the Covenant Triangle.  The Father leads to Identity.  Identity leads to Obedience.  This is a healthy relationship with our creator.

This is absolutely not what we get with Samson.  Samson’s first words of this story are “Get me this woman that I want.  She’s right in my own eyes.”  Even when his mother and father try and persuade him to follow God’s ways, Samson rebels.

What makes Samson such a great story to study is because it is so easy to see what Samson does wrong.  He’s so focused on his own desires that he’s not at all submitted to the Father.  He wants the Philistine woman so he gets her.

Then the issue with the lion and the riddle comes along.  Samson becomes impressed with his ability to come up with a riddle.  He is focused on both his own strength and wit.  He continues to display how focused he is on himself.  Samson is just not getting his identity from God.  He’s submitting to something, for sure.  He’s just not submitting in obedience to the Father and the identity that the Father gives to him.  He’d rather be obedient to his own thinking and his own passions.

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