What Not to Say to Your Wife (Part 2)
In honor of mothers and godly women everywhere . . . I offer up this second blog post in the series.
Samson was a man's man. This dude took the jawbone of a donkey and slew one thousand Philistines with it. Now, that's warrior ingenuity! Trust me, men, nobody in the UFC today could even hope to last more than a minute in the octagon with Samson.
But, like so many manly champions, Samson's weakness was, you guessed it, women.
His first wife was a Philistine. He arranged a large feast for her on the wedding day, and really liked how she looked. So far so good. Keep it up, Sammy.
Then, Samson decided to put a riddle to the enemies of Israel, the Philistines. The deal was, if they figured out the riddle Samson would give them thirty linen wraps and thirty changes of clothes. OK, this just got weird. But, that was the deal. But if they could not solve the riddle, they owed Sammy the linen fashion wear.
Well, the Philistines threatened to kill Samson's wife and family if she did not tell them the answer to the riddle. So, she begged for a week and Samson finally gave up the goods. But, here's where it gets really hilarious and sad.
When the Philistines solved the riddle, Samson said:
If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle (Judges 14:18).
Men, please, please never call your wife a heifer. In fact, you should probably avoid any and all references to animals when speaking of your wife. Just sayin'.
"Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones" (Proverbs 16:24).
by Keith McWhorter