Samson - Jury Duty That No One Gets Out Of

Judges 14:16-17 Then Samson's wife threw herself on him, sobbing, "You hate me! You don't really love me. You've given my people a riddle, but you haven't told me the answer."
"I haven't even explained it to my father or mother," he replied, "so why should I explain it to you?" She cried the whole seven days of the feast. So on the seventh day he finally told her, because she continued to press him. She in turn explained the riddle to her people.

I enjoy watching the shows that have court room based scenes: Matlock, Law and Order, Shark, Perry Mason, Walker, Texas Ranger. In all these shows, there's that scene when they have the eye witness on the stand - the innocent person who's going to blow the case wide open with their testimony - and when asked the one question that will put the defendant away for life, they answer, "I've never seen that man before". Well you know it's coming because there's still a half an hour left until the shows over, but nonetheless it's very frustrating that they would lie on the stand. What we usually find out, during the rest of the show, is that the witness has been paid off or threatened. Without truly getting to know their character, there's no way to determine why they chose to act the way they did and lie on the stand.

At first glance in these verses, Samson's wife looks like a whiny, weasely woman. Someone who's working at Samson over and over to get what she wants. She cries all week long, she keeps asking him for the answer until he finally breaks down. THEN she turns around and tells the men the answer that she finally got from Samson. Going by this, Samson's wife does not seem like a good person at all - probably someone we don't want to know. However, if you remember in the last post, these same men threatened to burn down her house along with her whole family. I'm not sure about you, but I might do whatever it took to save my family as well.

The human nature in us takes one look at the 'sin' and declares it bad. While sin is bad, it should not be enough for us to dismiss a person. If we could take the time to find out the reason behind someone that's sinning, we might be able to help them. Just like in the court room scene - the rest of the show is usually spent helping the eye-witness, who was once supposed to be the hero, out of whatever trouble they're in. Did someone cut in front of you in line at the grocery store? Sure, they may just be a rude person, OR they may have a sick child at home and they're trying to rush back to get them some medicine. Did someone cut you off while driving and then honk their horn at you? Maybe they have bad driving skills and need manners, OR maybe they just had a fight with their spouse over an affair and they can't see straight through their hurt.

Are we willing to look past the sin and see the person?