Women of the Bible Part 8

Praise G.o.d: That he defeats the enemies of our soul.

Offer Thanks: That we can be instruments of deliverance for others.

Confess: Any tendency toward pa.s.sivity in your struggle against sin and Satan.

Ask G.o.d: To give you wisdom and discernment in the spiritual battle.

Lift Your Heart Sometimes we are naive about the kinds of spiritual struggles that we face as Christians. Ephesians 6 talks about the importance of putting on the full armor of G.o.d in order to successfully engage in battle. This week take some time for a wardrobe check-make sure you aren't missing anything vital, without which you will be more vulnerable to attack. Here's a quick checklist for the well-dressed spiritual warrior: The Belt of Truth - Have any small dishonesties crept into your life?

The Breastplate of Righteousness -Are you cooperating with grace to become more Christlike?

The Shoes of the Gospel of Peace -The gospel reconciles us to G.o.d and others. Are you willing to receive it, live by it, and share it?

The s.h.i.+eld of Faith -Are you responding to life with faith or in a way that shows you really don't think G.o.d is quite as loving or as powerful as he says he is?

The Helmet of Salvation-Salvation is a gift. But like any gift, it has to be received.

The Sword of the Spirit-G.o.d's Word wounds the enemy and thwarts his purposes. Reading and praying through Scripture helps us take the offensive.

Lord, help me to be ready so that any moment I can stand against the enemy and even deal a decisive blow in the battle. Give me courage, discernment, and wisdom and help me to stay close to you in the midst of the fray.

Delilah.

HER NAME MEANS.

"Dainty One"

Her Character: A prost.i.tute whose nationality is unknown, she used her beauty to betray her lover and enrich herself.

Her Sorrow: That Samson lied to her, making her look foolish on three different occasions.

Her Joy: That she overpowered one of history's most powerful men, handing him over to his enemy, the Philistines.

Key Scripture: Judges 16:4 - 22 Monday HER STORY.

Her teeth gleamed white in the dusky light as a smile parted lips soft and smooth as a scarlet ribbon. Earrings glinted gold as she threw back her head and laughed out loud. Fortune had come knocking on her door that day. No lover had ever paid Delilah as well as Samson would.

The Philistine kings hated the long-haired strongman who had set their fields afire and slain a thousand of their countrymen. Each had offered Delilah an incredible sum-eleven hundred shekels of silver! She had merely to deliver the secret of Samson's strength. His would be no match for hers, a strength born of beauty and schooled in the arts of love. Weakened by pa.s.sion, he would tell her everything she needed to know.

"If anyone ties me with seven fresh thongs that have not been dried, I'll become as any other man," he replied to her persistent probing. Hiding a few Philistines in the room for good measure, Delilah waited until he slept and then carefully wrapped him with the thongs and exclaimed, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" But he had outsmarted her, snapping the cords as his enemies fled.

Like a man toying with a kitten, Samson repeated the ruse twice, tricking Delilah with crazy stories about new ropes and braided hair. Finally Delilah confronted him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your great strength." Worn down by her nagging, Samson gave in.

"No razor has ever been used on my head," he confided, "because I have been a n.a.z.irite set apart to G.o.d since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength will leave me, and I will become as weak as any other man." Years earlier, before his birth, an angel had instructed his mother that he should drink no wine, touch nothing unclean, and never cut his hair. He was to be dedicated to G.o.d in a special way, destined to play a great role in G.o.d's plan to free his people from their Philistine overlords. A strong man unable to subdue his own tempestuous nature, Samson had already broken the first two stipulations of his vow. Now he was about to break the third, preferring the good graces of a woman to the favor of his G.o.d.

Sensing she had heard the truth at last, Delilah sent word to the Philistines. After cutting his hair while he slept, she once again called, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" This time Samson awoke from his sleep unable to resist his enemies, who quickly seized him, gouging out his eyes. Then they imprisoned him in Gaza, where he spent his days in darkness, performing women's work grinding grain.

That's the last we hear of the lovely, treacherous, and now wealthy Delilah, but not the last we hear of her lover. Slowly Samson's hair began to grow back, first a short cap to warm his head and then a cover for his ears. What harm can a blind man do us? the Philistines must have reasoned.

One day they held a great celebration in honor of Dagon, G.o.d of the harvest, for delivering Samson into their hands. Oblivious to their danger, they brought him out of prison to make sport of their once-mighty enemy. But when Samson stood among the pillars of their temple, he prayed, "O Sovereign Lord, remember me. O G.o.d, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes." Then he braced himself against the two central pillars of the temple and pushed. The roof buckled and collapsed, and Samson and his enemies were buried together under its rubble. By his death, Samson killed more Philistines than he had in life. Just as the angel had predicted, Samson had begun a work of deliverance that David would complete many years later.

The strange story of Samson and Delilah is hardly edifying. It's tempting to conclude that the selfish, ill-disciplined Samson had finally met his match in the greedy Delilah. A visitation by an angel, the gift of supernatural strength, a prophetic destiny - such obvious blessings could not a.s.sure Samson's devotion. Why would G.o.d use such a man, enabling him to become a judge in Israel? What a contrast to Deborah, who had ruled Israel a century earlier! Perhaps G.o.d had little promising material to choose from, given the state of his people during an era of Israel's history where "everyone did as he saw fit" (Judges 21:25).

If anything, Delilah's role in this sordid tale a.s.sures us that G.o.d will use anything and anyone to accomplish his purpose. Even our sin. Even our enemies. Our deliverance is purely a matter of grace. But how much better if we become people set apart for his service, whose inner strengths match our outer strengths, enabling us to live out our destiny a.s.sured of G.o.d's pleasure.

Tuesday HER LIFE AND TIMES.

HAIR.

Samson's hair obviously plays a key role in the story of his rise to power and his fall from grace. He had grown it long, plaiting it in seven braids as a result of a n.a.z.irite vow (for more on such vows, read Numbers 6).

Good-looking Absalom, King David's son, had so much hair that he had to cut it whenever "it became too heavy for him" (2 Samuel 14:26). Remarkably, his shorn curls weighed as much as five pounds! But Absalom's luxurious locks eventually got the better of him. During battle one day his head got caught in the branches of a large oak tree (2 Samuel 18:9). His ma.s.s of hair no doubt contributed to the entanglement. The man who had tried to wrench the kingdom from his own father swung helplessly from the tree, an easy target for his enemies.

Before being thrown to her death, Queen Jezebel not only painted her eyes but "arranged her hair" (2 Kings 9:30). The beautiful hair of the Beloved in Song of Songs is compared to a "flock of goats" and a "royal tapestry" (Song of Songs 4:1; 7:5), while the Lover's hair is described as "wavy and black as a raven" (Song of Songs 5:11). Often the Old Testament writers described living to old age - so old their hair turned gray-as a mark of G.o.d's favor and blessing (Proverbs 16:31; 20:29). People who were mourning would cut or pull out their hair in their grief (Ezra 9:3; Isaiah 22:12; Jeremiah 7:29). A sinful woman, full of anguish for her sins, poured perfume on Jesus' feet, washed them with her tears, and wiped them with her hair (Luke 7:38).

By New Testament times, men were wearing their hair shorter and only women allowed their hair to grow long. Paul was pretty adamant about this in 1 Corinthians 11:6, 14 - 15. Both Paul and Peter took time to warn the women of their day specifically against "braided hair," directing them to focus on inner beauty, not outward.

Women today spend millions of dollars cutting, coloring, perming, and styling their hair. But remember, no amount of money or primping can cover up a lack of inner beauty. Before arranging your hair into a becoming style, consider where your inner beauty needs work. Go to Galatians 5:22 - 23 for some attractive characteristics the Spirit is willing to work in you. Then you'll be beautiful outside and in.

Wednesday HER LEGACY IN SCRIPTURE.

Read Judges 16:4 - 22.

1. Why was Delilah willing to betray Samson?

2. What were her strengths? Her weaknesses? What are your strengths? Your weaknesses?

3. If you think back over the biblical women you've studied so far, you will notice that several of them used manipulation to get what they wanted. When, if ever, have you used manipulation to get what you wanted? How common a habit is it for you? Exactly what manipulative tactics have you used?

4. Why do you think G.o.d chose to work through a man like Samson? What does this say about G.o.d? About the times in which Samson and Delilah lived?

5. In what area of your life do you need renewed faith that good will triumph?

Thursday HER PROMISE.

Even the sordid story of Delilah and her Hebrew lover, Samson, conveys an important truth: G.o.d loves us and will not abandon us even when we make mistakes, even when we sin. Over and over throughout the biblical narrative, we see G.o.d using people who are great sinners, people who are less than perfect, people who through their own folly fail and only then recognize their need of him. He didn't abandon people like Samson, foolish and sinful though he was, and he won't abandon us, foolish and sinful though we might be.

Promises in Scripture Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O Lord.

-Psalm 25:7 The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made.

The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.

-Psalm 145:13 - 14 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

- i Thessalonians 5:24 Friday HER LEGACY OF PRAYER.

"How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your great strength. With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death.

-Judges 16:15 - J6 Reflect On: Judges 16:4 - 22.

Praise G.o.d: That he is sovereign, able to use our most tangled relations.h.i.+ps to achieve his purposes.

Offer Thanks: For calling you to be devoted to him, set apart in a special way.

Confess: Any tendency to manipulate others.

Ask G.o.d: To help you surrender any unhealthy relations.h.i.+p to him. Take whatever steps G.o.d is calling you to take.

Lift Your Heart Take inventory of your most important relations.h.i.+ps. Have you formed any unhealthy dependencies? Is a spouse or boyfriend leading you away from G.o.d rather than closer to him? Have you made compromises that diminish your desire for G.o.d? If so, find a trusted friend or counselor in whom to confide. Pray together about the best course of action and then follow it. Be faithful to marital commitments, but find a way to restore your spiritual pa.s.sion. Right now, take time to write G.o.d a letter. Tell him how desirable he is and how much you long to be connected to him. Don't be afraid to wear your heart on your sleeve - G.o.d is looking for men and women who love him more than they love their own lives.

Lord, you know all the struggles of my heart. You created me in such a way that no one but you can fully satisfy my longings.Yet you also know how easily I am fooled, believing that flesh and blood relations.h.i.+ps hold the key to all my needs. Forgive me for the times I've put my relations.h.i.+p with_above my relations.h.i.+p with you.

Give me the wisdom, courage, and grace to love you with abandon.

Naomi.

HER NAME MEANS.

"MyJoy" or "Pleasant"

Her Character: Suffering a threefold tragedy, Naomi refused to hide her sorrow or bitterness. Believing in G.o.d's sovereignty, she attributed her suffering to his will. But her fixation on circ.u.mstances, both past and present, led to hopelessness. A kind and loving mother-in-law, she inspired unusual love and loyalty in her daughters-in-law.

Her Sorrow: To have lost a husband and two sons in a foreign land, far from family and friends.

Her Joy: To have returned safely to Bethlehem with her daughter-in-law Ruth, who would eventually rekindle her happiness and hope.

Key Scripture: Ruth 1; 4:13 - 17 Monday HER STORY.

She stood like an old tree twisted against the sky. Though Naomi could see for miles from her vantage point high on the road that led from Moab to Judah, she could glimpse nothing at all of her future. She thought about robbers, rumored on the road ahead. What more, she wondered, could possibly be taken from her? Her thoughts strayed to the past.

Moses, she knew, had been buried somewhere in these mountains. But his people and hers had moved west into Canaan centuries earlier. Would she, too, be left behind, prevented from ever seeing her kinsfolk again? Was G.o.d so displeased with her?

Ten years ago, she and her husband, Elimelech, had lived happily in Bethlehem. But the city whose name meant "house of bread" suddenly had none, so they had migrated to the highlands of Moab to escape the famine. Then Elimelech had died and her sons had married Moabite women, whose race had descended from Abraham's nephew, Lot. Plenty of women lost their husbands. Like them, she would find a way to survive. But then she had suffered the worst grief a mother could - outliving her own children.

Now Ruth and Orpah, her daughters-in-law, were the only kin she had in Moab. Loving them tenderly, she felt their widowhood as a double grief. Together they had cried and comforted each other. The three women finally decided to leave Moab for Bethlehem. But once on the road, Naomi's misgivings outran her craving for companions.h.i.+p. It wasn't right for young women to forsake their families and friends for so uncertain a future. What chance would they, widows and strangers, have in Bethlehem, even now that the famine had run its course?

"Go back, each of you, to your mother's home," she told them. "May the Lord show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband."

But Orpah and Ruth insisted, "We will go back with you to your people."

"Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me - even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons-would you wait until they grew up?"

The three women embraced, tears streaking their cheeks. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye. But Ruth clutched Naomi and whispered fiercely, "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your G.o.d my G.o.d. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."

The old woman's stubbornness was no match for the younger woman's love. And so Naomi and Ruth continued on to Bethlehem. After so long an absence, Naomi's return created a great commotion in the town, and all the women welcomed her, saying, "Can this be Naomi?"

"Don't call me Naomi," she told them. "Call me Mara [meaning 'bitter'], because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me."

Naomi could not see past her suffering. Like many of us, she may have felt as though her tragedies were punishment for her sins. Yet had she known the blessings in store, she might not have felt so hopeless. Instead, she may have compared herself to the tree that Job so graciously describes: At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.

Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.

Job 14:7 - 9 Though she didn't know it, the scent of water was in the air. Naomi's life was beginning again, her story still unfolding.

Tuesday HER LIFE AND TIMES.

FAMINE.

Pictures of the bloated stomachs and empty eyes of children dying of hunger hover in our minds long after the television is turned off. Famine today, just as in Bible times, is the great destroyer of the weak-of helpless children and defenseless elderly. The cries of mothers unable to save their hungry children echo throughout the years, a painful reminder of our dependence on the earth for our sustenance.

There are two rainy seasons in Palestine - October - November and March -April. When rain didn't fall during these two periods, famine resulted. Famine could also occur when hail or insects destroyed the food supply or when invading armies devastated crops in order to bring a captured people into submission.

Throughout Scripture G.o.d seemed to use famine to bring about his purposes. Deuteronomy 28:22 - 24 gives a vivid description of the famine that would come if G.o.d's people disobeyed him. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all left Palestine because of a famine in the land. The events of a worldwide famine brought Joseph's father, Jacob, and his brothers to Egypt, where they eventually became the slaves of the pharaohs. In the book of Ruth, Naomi and her husband fled to Moab because of a famine in Israel, and, through their flight and its subsequent events, G.o.d brought Ruth into his holy plan as an ancestor of his Son, Jesus.

In the New Testament, Jesus predicted that famine would be one of the signs of the end of the ages (Matthew 24:7; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:11). In the book of Acts we learn that a believer by the name of Agabus foretold a severe famine (Acts 11:28); the next verse then reveals the opportunity this gave the believers to share with each other.

In one of Scripture's most somber prophecies, Amos told of the time when G.o.d would bring about another sort of famine: "I will send a famine through the land-not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord" (Amos 8:11).

In the past, G.o.d had always listened and responded when his people cried out to him, but Amos told of a time to come when their cries would be met with a frightening silence.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" asks Paul. "Shall trouble or hards.h.i.+p or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?" (Romans 8:35). But then Paul answers his own question with that wonderful believer's cry of victory: Nothing, not even famine, will ever separate us from G.o.d's love.

Wednesday HER LEGACY IN SCRIPTURE.

Read Ruth 1:1 - 22.

1. Choose three or four words to describe what Naomi experienced in 1:3 - 5.

2. What kind of reception do you think Naomi expected when she returned to Bethlehem with her Moabite daughter-in-law?

3. Who was at fault for Naomi's circ.u.mstances? Naomi? Her husband? G.o.d? Explain your answer. Who controlled Naomi's response to her circ.u.mstances?

4. If you suffered what Naomi suffered, would you be bitter? Why or why not?

5. What would it take for you to love and trust G.o.d in Naomi's circ.u.mstances?