leading Innov

3.1 Assignment: Devotional – Samson

Getting Started

Samson was considered one of the physically strongest men; yet, he was destroyed through his weaknesses. Samson’s downfall didn’t happen overnight. Instead, he made a number of smaller decisions that led him to drift away from his calling from God. Samson’s story is recorded in Judges 13–16. Samson’s parents dedicated him to God and his strength was conditional on him never shaving his head of hair. In this week’s devotion, we are going to focus on the passage from Judges 16:15–30 which describes Samson’s strength and downfall.

Samson led Israel for twenty years before falling in love with a woman named Delilah. The Philistines, Israel’s enemy, went to Delilah and paid her to find out Samson’s secret to his great strength. Delilah obliged and did her best to get the secret out of Samson. Samson lied to her about the secret, telling her that if she tied him up with fresh bowstrings, he would lose his strength. When doing so failed to weaken Samson, Delilah asked again. Like the first time, Samson misled her by convincing her to braid his hair into the fabric of a loom.

After two failed attempts at weakening Samson, Delilah once again asked Samson for his secret, and Samson told her if she shaved his head, he would lose his strength. While he was sleeping, Delilah cut off his locks and the Philistines captured him, blinded him, and took him as a prisoner. Oh, if Samson had only chosen to do what was right. Ultimately, God gives Samson his strength back one last time to destroy the Philistine temple with many of the enemy rulers in it.

Upon successful completion of this assignment, you will be able to:

· Self-reflect on impact of values and virtues on investment in others.

· Reflect on learning from others’ leadership examples.

· Background Information

· Review this short  article (new tab)  from last week on the judges of the Bible.

· Access the drop-down below to read or listen to Judges 6-8.

· Samson - Judges 16:15-30

Instructions

1. You may want to refer to your personal Bible for a preferred translation of the story of Samson in Judges 13–16.

2. Write a half-page reflection paper (Word document) that shares what stands out to you about Samson’s story.

a. What might you learn (positively or negatively) from his leadership example?

b. What might have been different about Samson’s story if he had chosen to do what was right?

c. What motivations might have caused Samson to make the decisions he did? How might you protect yourself from such downfalls?

3. Reflection papers are to be written in accordance with  APA Guidelines (7th ed.) (new tab)  including format guidelines. Papers must be logical, well organized, grammatically correct, and have correct spelling and sentence structure.  Write in complete paragraphs.