I’ve heard this story before.
It goes much like this:
A worldly reader, up on Bible verses, goes into a popular neighborhood bar and lays down a tidy sum on a bet that Delilah didn’t cut off Samson’s hair.
A throng of other patrons, all even vaguely familiar with the story of Samson, nearly break down the bar, trying to get a piece of the action.
Of course it was Delilah who cut off Samson’s hair, they all say.
“I’ve heard that from the time I was a kid listening to bedtime stories,” many of them loudly agree.
But then the big bettor calls for a Bible – the King James Version – and turns, in it, to the book of Judges.
To the anger of nearly all the other patrons, he reads out loud chapter 16, verse 19:
“And she made him (Samson) sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head…”
It was a man who actually cut off Samson’s hair, the betting Bible reader gloats as he walks out of that bar, laughing and counting up two fists full of all denominations of dollars.
Good and bad Christians, who for whatever reason were in that bar and got involved in that event, likely would never have lost on the bet, however.
Most Christians, good and bad, you see, are, through reading and studying the word, familiar with such Bible stories as the one about Samson and Delilah.
But what about those many, many other folks in the world, who, like those in the bar, mostly know only what someone else tells them about the truth?
Clearly, they’re getting wrong information.
And Jesus says we Christians, who believe in and follow Him, have to get involved and help the world out in that regard.
He says as much in Matthew 28:19-20: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
“Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the word.”
Couldn’t be any plainer than that – right?
OK then, so how do we carry out the command?
By no means take me as some sort of expert or authority on this, but I, personally, let the Holy Spirit guide me on occasions when I think it is time to teach.
And sometimes on those occasions, He tells me to shut up and let silence, at that time, do the work.
This lady at a worldly dinner, I remember, somehow started a conversation in which she used some convoluted logic – no Bible – to back the notion that Judas got a bad rap.
He was, she reasoned, actually a kind of hero.
Her notion too, it seemed, was getting a lot of acceptance from the many reasonable folks in attendance.
I boiled inside.
But there was no Bible around. Plus there was a whole lot more around for everyone to drink than just egg nog.
Still, my thinking was to wade in and debunk this blatant blasphemy.
But then my familiar Spirit-led inner voice from my good side said: “Wait man, arguing here about something like this won’t accomplish anything good.
“Shut up, let the Holy Spirit handle this one.”
I obeyed.
And some days later, I discovered that at least some of the people, who attended the party, couldn’t even remember the conversation.
“That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:5).
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