One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her. – Judges 16:1

Today's Scripture Reading (March 27, 2022): Judges 16

I have never slept well, and sometimes that led to me watching TV in the early morning hours on which I shouldn't have wasted my time. But it's not what you think. During my college years, I watched Christian Shows like the PTL (PTL stands for "Praise the Lord") Club with Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker in those early morning hours. The PTL Club seemed to sum up everything I passionately hated in the Christian Church. (My deepest apology to all of my readers who passionately loved the PTL Club and its many clones, but what were you thinking.) But, in the absence of something better to watch, I would occasionally tune in and then wonder why anyone watched this garbage, let alone believed in what they were selling.

I remember one episode of the Bakker's show that closed with a men's quartet singing "The Second Chapter of Act's" hit "Easter Song" (Hear the bells ringing, they're singing that we can be born again …) At the time I liked the song. This quartet turned a piece that had a beat and swing to it into a funeral dirge that didn't seem to match the song's positive message. As the song ended, the camera cut to a tearful Tammy Faye with her mascara running, a common image for the PTL Club, begging that the quartet would sing the song again. I responded to no one but my TV Screen, please don't, or I think I will start crying, and not for a good reason.

If only the evil of the PTL Club was restricted to questionable songs and theology, but the depth of the problem proved to be much deeper. The sin of Jim and Tammy included fraud, dubious accounting, theft, and serious moral violations that didn't just include sexual misconduct but rape and the payment of hush money. Yet, as a severe critic of the ministry, I also have to admit that the Bakkers did some good. It is just that they could have done so much more. But as they fell deeper and deeper into sin, they seemed to be able to divide their lives between the good into which they had once believed God was leading them and all of the evil that they ended up doing. They started to think that there were some things that God cared about and some things to which God was willing to turn a blind eye. But they were wrong.

Samson fell into the same trap. The author of Judges makes this statement so casually; Samson saw a prostitute, and he spent the night with her. Samson's morals were so low that he saw no problem with this. As long as he was doing the things God wanted him to do against the Philistines, then maybe God didn't care about the sin he allowed into his life. But perhaps the worst sin is that Samson kept the external features of a man of God and a Nazirite while not allowing those commitments to shape his character. The charge that Jesus made against the Pharisees of his day might have been even more appropriate to be said about Samson. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence" (Matthew 23:25). The tragedy of the life of Samson is that he didn't realize all that he could have been until it was too late. May we avoid the same sorrow.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 1 Samuel 3