Judges 14:1-20

Judges 14:1-20

The trouble begins. Like a golden thread, except not so golden, running through the story of Samson, this man is a fool around women. Especially foreign women who will only get him and his nation into trouble.

We can see this is wrong, and yet, on route to make arrangements for the wedding the Lord strengthens Samson to defeat a lion with his bare hands. The carcass of this lion and its swarm of bees become the source of Samson's riddle, which the Philistine wedding guests cannot unravel.
Samson is nagged/encouraged by his wife to tell her the riddle which she repeats to her people. This woman has made a choice, she will stick with her people rather than her new husband. Samson will not be able to lift her out of her family aliegences into a full union within the people of God.
Enraged, and it does read as though Samson goes off in a terrible rage, he kills 30 Philistines to pay off his debt and storms off home.

Is this serving the Lord? I really don't think so. Some might try to argue that the Philistines, all Philistines were enemies of the Lord and his people and however they are killed it is all one and is all well done. But that doesn't work for me. If the Lord is to exercise justice against all people then it must be just. And I don't think justice is served in anger.

Samson has a work to do for the Lord. He has been chosen and prepared for this from conception. His foolishness around women and his anger may go a long way to blunting the effectiveness of the Lord's purposes in Samson. Not that the Lord's purposes will fail, but they will and can be blunted by foolish living on the part of God's people.