Samson's hair

The original korean text: http://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025357056

 

(donga.com's netizen forum, Dec. 9, 2004)

 

Christianity rejects magic and superstition. But during the Middle Ages, people valued the bones of saints, believing that they contained mysterious powers. Even church leaned to superstition, so that the church having a part of Jesus' cross was deemed to be mysteriously powerful. So the churches were enthusiastic to collect the parts of the cross. Of course, any part of the cross might not have remained after Jesus' death on the cross. Nevertheless, if all the so-called parts of the cross of all churches in medieval Europe had been gathered together, they could have reached a much more amount than a cross. They were all bogus parts! That is the sin of the clergy. It is a great sin to make the laymen entertain a superstitious belief rather than to teach them trustworthy belief.

 

Samson was a Nazirite. The regulation of Nazirite requires a complete devotion of whole man to God for a certain period. During this period, he should not have his hair cut, nor drink hard liquor, nor touch unclean things. If an animal was to be offered to God, it was offered as a burnt offering. But man could not be killed and offered as a burnt offering, so that his hair which had been growing during the period of Nazirite was burnt as an offering instead of the man himself. Your hair must grow enough to be a decent burnt offering. So you have to be a Nazirite for quite a long period of time. one or two days are too short a period!

 

Samson, a Nazirite, forgetting his own identity, lived in love with a heathen woman Delilah. Samson was an invincible man of great strength while his hair was on his head. No one could win Samson. His girl friend allured him to confide the secret of his strength. The heathens cut off Samson’s hair while he was asleep. Then Samson suddenly lost his strength, became an ordinary man, suffered all kinds of humiliation from them, and died with them, revenging himself upon them.

 

We must not judge that Samson’s hair in itself has enormous power in the story of Samson. Though his hair was on his body, it was a burnt offering to burn to God later. Therefore it was God’s. His hair was a sign that he was a man of God. So God gave him a great deal of strength while his hair clung to him. Samson offered his hair which was God’s to the heathens who were the worshipers of idols. How can the God be with such a man? So he lost his strength.

  

We have a similar thing in our body to Samson’s hair. It is a sexual organ. The organ is on our body but belongs to God, because God, the Lord of life, produces life through our genitals. Therefore God resents when we misuse the sexual organs and sin thereby because they are on our body. on the contrary, if we use our sexual organs rightly in God, he will give us blessing and delight according to our right deeds.