1. Samson – the Weak Superhero Part 4
Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them… (Judges 2:17)
No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals… (Judges 8:33)

2. Samson – the Weak Superhero Part 4
…the well-being of women…as we move through the book of Judges parallels the gradual disintegration and decline of Israel as a society and a religious community. The women in the Samson story continue to reflect this downward trend in social and religious degradation. Their portraits will find parallels in our own time and communities… (Dennis T. Olson…New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary)…
Powerlessness

3. Samson – the Weak Superhero Part 4
…he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah…(Judges 16:4)
…But he did not know that the LORD had left him…Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison… (Judges 16:20-21)
Powerlessness

4. Samson – the Weak Superhero Part 4
The people of Gaza were told, “Samson is here!” So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying, “At dawn we’ll kill him.” But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron… (Judges 16:2-3)
Power

5. Samson – the Weak Superhero Part 4
The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there… (Revelation 21:24-25)

6. Samson – the Weak Superhero Part 4
Samson’s placing the Gaza gates on the hill outside Hebron is one more affirmation that “thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen” …Dennis T. Olson…

7. Samson – the Weak Superhero Part 4
He is a feminized captive and exile…a paradigm of Israel in exile…seemingly abandoned by God…Dennis T. Olson…
Hope is Power

8. Samson – the Weak Superhero Part 4
But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved… (Judges 16:22)
HOPE!

9. Samson – the Weak Superhero Part 4

10. Samson – the Weak Superhero Part 4

11. Samson – the Weak Superhero Part 4