“I have done to them what they did to me,” [Samson] answered. (v. 11)

Have you ever wondered why Jesus flipped the script on revenge? Why He told us to turn the other cheek, to persist though we are scorned, and to love our enemies?

It’s because the opposite—revenge—always ends in tragedy.

Samson is the perfect illustration of this:

In a time of conflict, Samson serves Israel—but not as a prophet or a pastor. Samson is a judge, a minister of God’s justice, against the pagan and in defense of his people. So, though it is bizarre to us, we see the Spirit of God strengthen the man for slaughter.

It’s…kind of a mess.

Not the judgment, but the temperament.

The reason we’re turned away from violence and revenge is that those things only ever escalate. You can only take an eye for an eye, like, twice. Then you have to move on to more and worse.

Samson lives this out, his own vengeful will working out God’s judgment, but it gets increasingly bizarre and brutal as his days go.

We, when we love the Jesus way, short-circuit brutality with beauty—though we are slain. Deescalation is the path to proclamation, not retaliation.

— Tyler