How the History Channel Miniseries "The Bible" Botches the Story of Sampson

And since we're going to be doing an extended look at the story of Samson as it was laid out in the History Channel miniseries The Bauble, I think it's important that we play our History Channel.

Miniseries update music. Here we go. Now we got a real easy listening groove going on with that.

Update music. So okay, let's kind of set this up for you. What I'm going to do right now is I'm going to go back through some of the audio from the History Channel miniseries The Bauble and basically walk you through what they did with the story of Samson.

The reason I'm going to do that is I want you to hear what they do to it and then I'm going to switch gears and we're going to go to Saddleback Church out there in Lake Forest, California. Now this past Sunday, Rick Warren did not deliver the message for part two of their five-part sermon series entitled History Makers.

In fact, it was Buddy Owen who delivered the sermon. So he's like Rick Warren's second in command out there when it comes to teaching. And so what we're going to do is we're going to listen to part of, not the whole thing, part of Buddy Owen explaining the theology in this segment regarding Samson because, keep in mind, Buddy, just like Rick Warren last week, is preaching from the History Channel miniseries The Bauble.

So they were playing, you know, they were showing video clips of The Bauble out there at Saddleback and Buddy was giving us the important purpose-driven theological salient points for us to understand in this story.

So the idea is this, is that rather than me telling you what their theology is, I'll let you hear first from the movie, I'll then let you hear Buddy from Saddleback's interpretation of the theology of the story, and then what we're going to do is we're going to open our Bibles and we're going to take a look at the story of Samson.

Now I feel like poor Samson, he gets dealt with a lot here at Fighting for the Faith. We've dealt with him two or three times within the last year and a half. So I apologize if any of what you're going to be hearing in the extended biblical teaching portion of this seems redundant, but it's necessary to go through because I think it's important for you to understand the story of Samson biblically.

Then what we'll do when we're done with all that, we'll take a break and in hour number two we're going to be heading out to Oklahoma City to lifechurch .tv and we're going to be listening to a sermon entitled Alter Ego, Alter Ego by Craig Rochelle from lifechurch .tv where he narcegeets ridiculously, and this by the way, I think it's alter ego self-image, something to that effect, but what we're going to be listening to is him narcegeet the story of Gideon, which is another famous purpose-driven biblical twisting tactic because apparently it's all about you, but it's really not.

So with that, let's change gears here and we're going to be listening to a series of bites that I've chosen from the History Channel mini-series, The Babel, in order for you to understand what they did with the story of Samson.

Now remember, the important thing has nothing to do with whether or not the actor playing Samson was black, brown, green, yellow, who cares? He could have been played by a Martian. The theology is where the action's at.

So put all that aside and let other people argue that. It's completely not even a point. But let's go back to the opening narration from the story of Samson from the History Channel mini-series, The Babel.

Here we go. Okay, so the problem is Israel entered the promised land and they've spread out, but they still have enemies on every side and they don't have any really big leaders like Moses and others, and so they have to rely on local heroes that are called judges like Samson.

So that's kind of the setup there, and then we meet Samson. He's in the middle of a fight and whatever, but as the story develops, we go forward a little bit to learning how Samson apparently received a special purpose from God at the time that he was conceived, and there's a particular duty that he is supposed to fulfill.

Samson is a purpose-driven guy. In fact, he has a special and unique purpose from God. His job is to discover that purpose and then execute on it, and what we find is that unfortunately, Samson doesn't do that.

Instead, he becomes distracted from his purpose. So here is Samson's mother explaining to him what his duty is, and this is kind of a long.

Little segment, but I'll let you hear it. Here we go. Okay, that's the important part. So what.

We're learning here about Samson is that he has strength that was given to him specifically by God, and his duty is to drive the Philistines away. That's his purpose.

Instead of fighting the Philistines, Samson falls in love and marries one.

So rather than getting rid of the Philistines, Samson falls in love and marries one. Keep a note of this in your mind here, because when we go and look at the biblical narrative regarding Samson's first marriage, there is an important note in the biblical text, and that is that this was from God himself.

So the way they've set up the story is that Samson has a purpose. He has all this incredible strength because God has a special and unique purpose for him, and his duty is to drive out the Philistines.

But then rather than fulfill his purpose, well, he marries one. Yeah, let me back this up. Yeah, here we go again.

Instead of fighting the Philistines, Samson falls in love and marries one.

Now that was Samson saying to his Philistine bride, let me talk to my mom. Okay, I'll explain.

This all to her. Reject the woman I fell in love with just because she's a Philistine.

Will your love protect us from them? So he's now justifying his marriage to a Philistine, because remember, his unique purpose is to drive out the Philistines. And rather than do that, he's now distracted.

He's fallen in love with him, and his justification doesn't love come from God. And so now his mother's concerned, well, will your love for this woman that you just married save us from those angry-looking, mean old Philistines standing over there giving us.

Hairy eyeballs? It's a message to make it clear to them. They cannot take our women.

That would be the evil Philistines, if you can't tell by the sound of the ominous music in the background. So now we've got the leader of the Philistines upset. We need to send a message to those Israelites.

They can't take our women. Now, I find it interesting that the way they've written this biblical story, all of a sudden now it's the Philistines who are really not into intermarrying, although the biblical command for not intermarrying is there in the Mosaic text.

So this is all backwards. Apparently the Philistines have more common sense than the Israelites do,.

But to make it clear to them, they cannot take our women. We should never mix. Okay, so the way.

The story of Samson now is laying out, he has a specific purpose from God. He's to drive out the Philistines, but he's not doing his purpose. He's now distracted, fallen in love with one of the very people he's supposed to be driving out.

And so what do the Philistines do? They're angry that these Israelites are intermarrying and taking their women, so they end up murdering Samson's wife. And Samson, in order to avenge the death of his wife, kills some Philistines, and the Philistines are really upset.

And so Samson has become an outlaw. He doesn't even live in town anymore. He's out living in a cave somewhere out in the wilderness. And the leader of the Philistines has decided that he's had enough of this killing that Samson is doing.

And so what he's basically done is taken Israelites hostage and has said that he's going to kill a hostage every day until Samson shows up. In fact, here's the important dialogue there in the story of Samson as retold from the History Channel miniseries, The Babel.

Here we go. And that was a Philistine killing a hostage. So we've got a hostage crisis now that's become part of the story of Samson, where every day an Israelite is going to be killed until Samson turns himself in.

Well, never worry, never fear. The intrepid Israelites go out into the wilderness and they find Samson's cave. And they're going to try to talk some sense into Samson. Here's the dialogue with the people of Israel trying to talk sense to Samson so that he can turn himself in.

So that the hostage crisis can end back home in the town there. Samson, that's his mother.

Speaking. To reason with you, Samson. Reason? You must stop the killing. For every Philistine you kill, two more appear seeking revenge. As they do to me, so I have done to them. The Philistines are our rulers now.

Everyone must do what they think is right. Now listen to this ethic here. This should give you the willies. Hang on. No, Samson. You must do what is right for your people.

Yeah, let me play that little dialogue again without any interruption and tell you where you need to go in order to understand what's ticking behind this statement. The Philistines.

Are our rulers now. Everyone must do what they think is right. No, Samson. You must do what is right for your people, not for yourself. You must give yourself up, Samson. So yeah, this should.

Worry you. And the reason why this should worry you, and if you don't know what it is that we're dealing with here, that was a little dialogue there with a very interesting moral standard. Samson says you must do what you feel is right.

And then the argument back to him from the people is that no, you must do what is right for your people, for the community, not for you as an individual. This ethic, by the way, if you're not familiar with what this is, go back into the archives of Fighting for the Faith and listen to my lecture from May 11th of last year, 2012, entitled Resistance is Futile.

You will be assimilated into the community. You will then understand what this particular ethic is. I just point it out for you and send you on your way if you want to discover what's going on there. But no, no, you must do what's right for your people.

You're expected to sacrifice yourself for your people, for your community. We continue.

Is this what God wants?

So now Samson's confused. He's asking his mother if this is what God wants for him.

I'm not sure. Sometimes God leads us in ways we cannot see.

So God guides us in ways we cannot see, and she assures him that God will guide his choices. Now we fast forward. He turns himself in. He goes with his people, his community. And does his duty to sacrifice himself for the community.

And again, it's just bizarre. And keep in mind, this is a guy who's purpose-driven. And we go back now to kind of a reprisal of what his purpose is again. Here's Samson. When he turns himself in, by the way, they have him in shackles.

And because of his great strength, he breaks the shackles and begins to wage war all by himself against the Philistines by the use of a jawbone. But what we're going to hear at this point is Samson actually receiving a direct vision from God regarding his duty, his purpose.

So here's Samson in the shackles receiving a vision from God, and it comes to him in a form of remembering something that his mother said. So he has a vision and he's wondering, is that you God? He breaks the bonds and then starts just killing Philistines left and right with the jaw of a donkey.

And when he's done doing that, he stops for a minute and asks God a question. Here's what he asks.

Is this what you want from me? And he sees a woman behind him, gets a drink from her.

My name is Delilah. And then they go to a commercial break. But when they come back now, keep in mind, this is a story of a guy who has a purpose, who is distracted from his purpose. His job is to get rid of the Philistines or Philistines.

And while he's not doing his purpose, his unique God-given purpose, and that really sets up the narration as they come out of the commercial break where they had just introduced Delilah. Here we go. Samson was given great.

Strength to drive out the Philistines, but now he is distracted by Delilah.

So Samson has this great strength, but now he's distracted by Delilah. So this is a cautionary tale of somebody who was supposed to be purpose-driven, but is distracted away from his purpose. And then as the story unfolds, Delilah is basically asked by the leader of the Philistines to find out what his great strength is.

And they offer her a large amount of silver in order to betray Samson. She, during pillow talk, is able to divine from him what the source of his great strength is. She tells them, and then they come and arrest him.

And Samson looks completely perplexed, like he can't believe that she betrayed him like that. And well, when you read the entire story of Samson, I mean, that's completely bogus. Samson lied on several occasions to Delilah and regarding where his great strength was, and it was very clear what her intentions were.

And yet Samson kept playing with fire in that particular case. But anyway, so what ends up happening is they arrest him, put his eyes out, and then like you listened to yesterday's edition of Fighting for the Faith, he sacrifices himself, but never really lived up to his, well, purpose.

Yeah, so that's how they told the story of Samson on the History Channel miniseries, The Bauble. We're going to take a quick break, pay some bills. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the Faith, you can do so.

My email address is talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com, or you can subscribe on Facebook. It's facebook .com forward slash pirate Christian or follow me on Twitter. My name there, at Pirate Christian.

When we come back, we will then play for you Buddy Owen from Saddleback's interpretation of the segment from the History Channel miniseries, The Bauble. Stay tuned. Don't want to miss it. We'll be right back.

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Warning, beware of Bible teachers and pastors in miniseries that say that Samson was a purpose-driven guy who was distracted from his purpose. It's completely missing the point. Just a reminder, Fighting for the Faith, this is listener-supported radio.

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Now, what we're going to do here for this next segment, since we're already well into our discussion of how the miniseries, The Bauble, mishandles the story of Samson, it's important to note that Saddleback Church, that's where Rick Warren is the leader, and he was the primary, based on evidence given to us in statements made by Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, Rick Warren was the guy on their theological advisory board who was emailing them on almost a daily basis to advise them theologically regarding the filming of the miniseries, The Bauble.

So, I consider Saddleback to be the definitive, if you would, theological interpreter of the miniseries, The Bauble. Now, this particular sermon, though, by the way, this is week two from their History Makers sermon series, this was not preached by Rick Warren, like I've noted, this was preached by Buddy Owens out there at Saddleback, he's the second-in-command when it comes to teaching out there at Saddleback, and the sermon itself is entitled Lessons in Freedom, and what I'm going to do is play for you a little bit from the opening of the sermon so that you get the idea of what the setup is.

I happen to have the sermon notes in front of me, and so this is Lessons in Freedom, History Makers, part two. Here's the opening to the sermon so you at least get the setup of what it is they were trying to accomplish in this particular sermon.

Here's Buddy Owens. Hi, everybody. You can be seated.

Nice to see all of you here today. Welcome to Saddleback Church. We're continuing a series that we started last week on History Makers. Oh, while I remember, I want to say hi to everybody in our venues, our regional campuses, and I want to send a special shout-out to Pastor Stephen Lee and the Saddleback Congregation in Hong Kong.

They're watching today. Everybody say hi to Saddleback Hong Kong. So we're in our series on History Makers looking at the lives of all of these various people in the Bible, and the fun thing for me about doing this series, as many of you know, I grew up in church, so the people that we're looking at were the heroes of my Sunday school lessons when I was a little kid.

And so my sister, who's a couple years older than I am, and I always remind her that she's older than I am. So my sister and I, when we were kids, we used to reenact the stories of the people in the Bible.

So like, she got to be Moses, and I had to be Pharaoh so she could dunk me in the pool, you know, when the Red Sea crashed. But then I got to be David, and she was Goliath, because she was bigger than I was.

But my mom, she didn't take too well to me throwing rocks at my sister in the house. So, but my favorite one was when I played Samson, and she was Samsonetta. I couldn't let her be Delilah, because that'd be kind of weird.

So she was Samsonetta, and because, you know, Samson was blinded by the Philistines, so we would put blankets over our heads, and we would have these epic wrestling matches in the living room as Samson and Samsonetta.

So that was my upbringing with all of these characters in the Bible. It wasn't until many years later that I discovered that not everybody in the Bible is to be imitated. There are some people that you don't want to imitate their lives.

In fact, there's a verse I want to sort of use to set the scene here today. It's up here on the screen. It's 1 Corinthians 10, 11. The Bible says that these things happened. It's talking about the Old Testament.

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us. So some were examples and some were warnings. So they were examples and written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

So today we're going to look at four lives, two of which are examples and two of which are warnings. We're going to look at the life of Joshua. We're going to look at Samson. We're going to talk about Saul and we're going to look at David's life.

So let's just jump right in and start with Joshua. Take out your message notes.

Okay, now I'm going to pause right there. He said that the basic idea here is that 1 Corinthians 10, 11 says that there's people in the Bible that are there as examples and some that are warnings. Well, let's take a look at the context of that and we'll start at 1 Corinthians chapter 10 starting at verse 1.

Here's what it says. I do not want you to be unaware brothers that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed to the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and all ate and drank the same spiritual drink for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ.

Nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were as it is written the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did and 23 ,000 fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.

Now these things happened to them as an example but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

Now, I'm not trying to quibble but quoting 1st Corinthians chapter 10 verse 11 and saying that this is indicative of all of the stories of the Bible although in some sense true that's not exactly in the immediate context the point that Paul was making because Samson here is not listed as somebody whose example we should not follow.

Okay, this comes into play here so I'm basically trying to make the point that I think that Buddy Owens here is not exactly doing the right thing his premise is off. Let's just put it that way. It's just a bit screwy.

So he's going to start off with the story of Joshua and I'm going to fast forward now to his handling of the story of Samson so we can hear from Buddy Owens himself how Saddleback is interpreting the theology and again this is a sermon series based upon the mini-series The Babel.

So let's fast forward to Buddy Owens' theological interpretation as the story of Samson is a warning to us. Here we go.

Now let's move on to Samson's life. Joshua was an example of fearlessness. Samson's life is a warning about carelessness. Samson is a warning about carelessness. About 300 years after Joshua had finished leading his people through the conquest of all of the promised land they have settled in.

Now the people began to compromise. They began to intermarry with the nations around them and it had nothing to do with racism. God didn't want them to do that because the nations around them were not following the Lord.

They worshiped other gods. They were idolaters and as God's people began to intermarry and began to compromise the purity of their own faith they started to adopt the ways of the cultures in the world around them and God had warned them if you do that you're gonna get yourself in trouble and that's exactly what happened.

They came under the dominance of those powers that were around them. In Samson's days the enemies that were ruling over them were the Philistines and so God raises up this man named Samson gives him miraculously gives him supernatural strengths and sent him to be the conqueror to bring freedom for God's people and we can read in the book of Judges about all of these amazing feats of strength that Samson was able to perform and how he single handedly was defeating the Philistines.

But here's what happened to Samson is that after so many victories after so many spiritual highs seeing God come through Samson let his guard down and he allowed himself to be distracted. He was distracted by a Philistine woman an enemy.

Her name was Delilah. Samson's problem was that he believed that he could flirt with temptation that he could go ahead and just play with the idea of temptation but he really wouldn't get himself in trouble.

Samson had reached this place where he thought God is doing so many great things through my life and I am so important to God's plan that there's no way that God would allow me to fall or to fail. So Samson is a warning to us that you cannot play with sin.

Sin is not a game. Sin is a war and it's a war for your soul. And Samson made a fatal miscalculation by thinking he could just back off from the instruction that God had given him and he began to take for granted God's blessing on his life.

He began to take for granted God's glory and his grace. God had given Samson instruction. Actually he had given it to Samson's mother before Samson was born. And he had told Samson that you are never to cut your hair.

Now it's not that there's something magical about Samson's hair. It's that it was a sign of obedience a pretty simple thing. It was a sign of obedience. And as long as Samson obeyed God the glory of God rested on Samson's life.

As long as he obeyed God gave him strength. Well as we come on the scene that we're about to watch Samson has told Delilah the secret of his strength. Now remember Delilah is a Philistine. She's an enemy and she has made a deal with the Philistine rulers that she's gonna try to find out the secret to Samson's strength and she's gonna sell it to the Philistine rulers.

And so while Samson slept in Delilah's arms Delilah cut off his hair. It's like every clip is a compromise. Every lock of hair that falls to the ground is a promise of God that Samson has just let go of.

And finally when his hair is cut off Samson is now stripped of his power. And with that the commander of the Philistines put Samson's eyes out with his own hands.

Now they showed the clip but then they cut it out of the audio. Okay so apparently Samson according to Buddy Owens is a warning about carelessness. Now you know you saw the recurring theme in the when we play the clips from the miniseries itself as distraction.

So distraction or carelessness and we don't get the whole story of Samson. We just get the him being well betrayed by Delilah. So with that let's take a look at the story of Samson. If you have your Bible I need you to head on over to Judges chapter 13.

We're going to be reading quite a large section of scripture here and I'll be making a little bit of commentary along the way. But let's test now this reworking of the story of Samson from the clear simple to understand biblical text.

And we'll point out along the way again all scriptures really about Christ how Samson is actually prefiguring Jesus. I know that might sound crazy but that is in reality the case. Samson is a type of Jesus in the Old Testament.

And in Hebrews chapter 11 he makes an appearance in verse 32 in the Great Hall of Faith. He in fact scripture doesn't give us a warning about Samson. Instead Samson's great faith is held up for us as an example that should be followed Hebrews chapter 11 verse 32.

And what more shall I say for the time would fail me to tell you of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah of David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms and forced justice, obtained promises stopped the mouths of lions quenched the power of fire escaped the edge of the sword were made strong out of weakness became mighty in war and put foreign armies to flight.

Yeah Samson isn't listed as somebody that we should well avoid in the Great Hall of Faith passage. In fact he's held up as somebody as a great man of faith. That being the case Judges chapter 13 verse 1 the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

So the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for 40 years see Israel committed idolatry. They started whoring after other gods and they did what was evil and God put them under the hand of the Philistines to punish them to discipline them.

There was a certain man of Zorah of the tribe of the Danites whose name was Manoah and his wife was barren and had no children. And the angel of the Lord by the way in this particular case the angel of the Lord here this is Jesus himself.

This is a theophany. This is pre-incarnate Jesus showing up. You'll see why. That's the case in just a few more verses. But let me tell you the story. So you understand who's meeting with Samson's mother here.

So the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her behold you are barren and have not born children but you shall conceive and bear a son. Therefore be careful and drink no wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean.

For behold you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head. For the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.

Okay. So we could say that yes Samson has a unique purpose and let's remember always as we read this what that unique purpose was. His calling was to begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.

It doesn't say that his job was to set Israel completely free. His job was to begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines. So then the woman came and told her husband a man of God appeared to me and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God.

Very awesome. I did not ask him where he was from. And he did not tell me his name. But he said to me behold you shall conceive and bear a son. So then drink no wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean.

For the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death. So then Manoah prayed to the Lord and said oh Lord please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us and teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born.

And God listened to the voice of Manoah. And the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field. But Manoah her husband was not with her. So the woman ran quickly and told her husband behold the man who came to me the other day he's appeared to me.

So Manoah rose and went after his wife and came to the man and said to him are you the man who spoke to this woman. And he said I am see I'm just telling you when he says I am that should cue you in here as to what's going on.

The reason why is because you know that the I am here. Well that harkens us back to the burning bush. So then Manoah said now when your words come true what is to be the child's manner of life. And what is his mission.

The angel of the Lord said to Manoah of all that I have said to the woman let her be careful. She may not eat anything that comes from the vine. Neither let her drink wine or strong drink or eat anything unclean.

All that I have commanded her let her observe. So Manoah said to the angel of the Lord please let us detain you and prepare a young goat for you. And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah if you detain me I will not eat of your food.