Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - God Uses Evil for Good | Historical Books | Judges 14

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Growing up, you might have been taught that Samson was a hero. But is that true? Was Samson someone we should mirror? In today's episode, Jensen shares how Judges 14reminds us that God can use messy people for good. We love to hear from you all! If you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment below and tell us your biggest takeaway from today's episode. Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Judges 14

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. Looking back on my childhood, growing up in the church, if you had asked me to name a judge from the book of judges, I would have named Samson. And if he had asked me to tell you his story, I would have told you that he was a really strong and powerful leader of the Israelites who was tricked by a woman and died heroically defeating the Philistines. Now, maybe that's the story that you've been told as well. Some may argue that when teaching children the story of Samson, this is the necessary PG version of the text. But when I open up and read chapters 13 to 16 of the book of judges, when I read about this final judge of Israel, I'm confronted with an entirely different narrative. Like, when you add back in the PG-13 or R-rated portions of the story, when you allow the facts to be laid bare, you don't get the picture of Samson the hero. And if you try to shape him into a hero, if you attempt to stick to the narrative you've grown up with, you'll find yourself trying to find justification for his actions and ultimately wondering, what about this man does God find so heroic? The good news is that

we don't have to stick to this narrative of Samson as the hero. In fact, when we read the story of Samson, in the context of the whole book of judges, we're able to get a better vision for why the author is even telling us his story at all. You see, you and I, we love a hero. We love a good guy, redemptive arc, where the hero saves the day and makes the right choice in the end. But the book of judges doesn't really have a redemptive arc. If you remember all the way back in Judges 2, we talked about the downward spiral the book would follow. As the Israelites follow their pattern of sin, punishment, repentance, deliverance, peace, and then falling into further sin, the story was going to get darker and darker. The people of God would fall farther and farther from God's

vision for them. They would look more and more like the nations around them. And their judges would be no different. As we progress throughout judges, we find more and more flawed judges rising up. The baseline for evil shifts, the tolerance of sin is growing. And if Judges 13 maybe gave us hope that Samson would be different, a Nazarite blessed by God, Judges 14 reminds us that we are still deep within the book of judges. Samson is not our hero. What will follow is an account of a sinful man, making choices that devolved into further and further darkness until at last his choices kill him. While we cannot look to Samson as a hero that we would like to mirror, he still has something to teach us.

Let's look at Judges 14, verse 1. Samson went down to Timna, and at Timna, he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. Then he came up and told his father and mother, I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timna. Now get her for me as my wife. But his father and mother said to him, is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go and take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? But Samson said to his father, get her for me, for she is right in my eyes. Samson finds a woman that he wants to marry, and despite his parents' best efforts to remind him of God's law for his people to marry those

who shared their faith, who followed the same God, he pushes back saying, she's right in my eyes. Now this language, it echoes the line woven throughout judges, that the Israelites did what was right in their own eyes. They're not looking to God for how to live their lives. They're looking to themselves. Samson, their judge, is now doing no different. What is interesting is in the following verses, we read this. His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time, the Philistines ruled over Israel. Okay, so does that mean that God is okay with Samson's disobedience? Like, is it right for Samson to do what's right in his own eyes? Is that what this passage is telling us?

God is telling Samson to disobey? Well, I think in other people smarter than me think that what's happening here is not God commanding Samson to disobey, but God working with what he's been given. The state of Israel is clear. Their sin, their idolatry, it's bad. Samson, a Nazarite, someone who is to be set apart for God is, as we'll see, not obedient and faithful to those vows. And so God is choosing to work in the midst of this brokenness. God is taking something that Samson intends to do for his own glory, his own desires, to satisfy his own needs, and use it to bring himself glory. Now, as the story continues, Samson and his family travel to the town where this woman lives. And along the way a lion comes up to Samson, and we read that the spirit of a Lord rushed upon him, and he kills the lion with his bare hands.

Now, God is clearly with Samson here. He is empowering him to defend his life. giving him strength. When we think of the Spirit of God being with someone, we think of it in terms of the New Testament, right? Believers are filled with the Holy Spirit following Pentecost. It's a sign of belief, a sign that God is at work in your life, growing you, filling you with a spirit and empowering you to grow in the fruits of the Spirit to live like Jesus. But in the Old Testament, prior to the Pentecost, we see God's spirit working in different ways. His spirit acts. on people. It empowers them to do things that they wouldn't otherwise have been able to do. But those things, they further God's mission. They serve his people. We see in the example of Saul, the first

king of Israel, the spirit of the Lord came upon him when he was being anointed. It enabled him to prophesy. Then later, it came powerfully upon him when God used him to rescue his people. But we know if we finish out the story that Saul was no hero. He did not stay faithful to God. and he made many, many horrible choices. See, the spirit of God descending and enabling his leaders to act in ways for the betterment of God's people is different than how the spirit of God descends on believers at Pentecost and after. And it certainly is not a stamp of approval for all of a person's actions or choices.

In all times, people are sinful and fallen, and God continues to choose to work in and through them to accomplish his purposes. Now, throughout the rest of Judges 14, we find examples of Samson breaking his Nazarite vow. He touches the carcass of the dead lion. He hosts a feast for drinking alcohol. Then he foolishly makes a bet with the men attending his feast, giving them a riddle. His new wife then betrays him and shares the answer with these men, leaving Samson angry and indebted to these men. Verse 19 tells us, what has a man. What has a man? happens next. The spirit of the Lord rushed upon him. And what follows is harder to swallow than the amoral example of Samson being empowered to defend himself from a lion. This time, when the spirit of the

Lord rushes upon him, Samson kills 30 men of another town to take their clothing and repay his debt to these men. Then, in his anger, he abandons his new wife, leaves town, and she's given over to one of his companions. So Samson, while the Spirit of the Lord is rushing upon him, murders 30 men, discards his wife and leaves her to the abuse of other men. Do we have to justify his actions? Do we have to find the good if God's spirit was with him? Don't we have to? Well, here's what I'll say. The author's inclusion of letting us know that God's spirit was present in the midst of these actions is not to condone or justify or okay the evil that Samson is choosing to carry out. Rather, it is to let us, the reader, know that even in the midst of this darkness,

even in the midst of this evil and suffering, even evil and suffering that we choose, God is sovereign. The evil the enemy is trying to use to harm God's creation and to thwart his plans is being co-opted by God to actually deliver and bring rescue and salvation to his people. Now, I know this isn't an easy concept, but stick with me. Look at Jesus. Look at his death. A horrible tragedy, evil, God killed and crucified. Does that mean that God was not sovereign, that he did not approve or allow this death? No, he uses the tools of evil for good. Without the death of Jesus, without the crucifixion, there's no final rescue, no resurrection for God's

people. In the middle of the evil, it looks like Satan has won. It looks like there is no purpose. It looks like God is allowing evil for no reason, but he is working it out for the good of his people. Like Joseph in Genesis 50, he was sold into slavery by his brothers, evil, falsely accused and imprisoned, evil. He endured evil. God allowed evil. And out of it, he saved nations of people from starvation. He saved the lives of his family. And he said to them, as for you, you meant evil against me. But God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. So we don't know why Samson killed those men, why their lives were taken, why his wife suffered, why evil was allowed to spread. But with the words of the author, we know that God is above it all. He is sovereign. He is working, and he is asking us,

will you trust me to be in control? Will you trust that I can use evil? I can use broken people. I will not abandon you in the midst of evil. I will be with you, and I will deliver you. God will use the tools of Satan against him for our good. We'll continue. We'll continue. to see what's next for Samson, we'll see how God does use him to deliver his people for a time. But more than that, the Book of Judges will make us long for a better leader, a better king. And the Book of First and Second Samuel will show us that no earthly king can withstand the evils of this world. It will make us long for an eternal, good, and better king. It will make us long for Jesus.

Samson was never the hero. He couldn't be. The Bible isn't really about giving us heroes that we should look up to and emulate. It's about making us long for Jesus, for the one who is holy good, who is God, who is just, who can be king and reign forever over a kingdom where there is no evil, no more death, no more decay or pain. The end is written. Jesus wins. God's sovereignty is sure. He will. Once and for all put an end to Satan's attempts to thwart him. He will cast out evil forever. Let's rest knowing that we can trust him to act in the midst of evil for our good.