Judges 15 - Samson goes back to
see his wife, but her father will not allow it.
Believing that Samson has rejected her, the woman’s father has given her
to the other man. Again angry, Samson goes and ties 300 foxes together by the tails and sets their tails on fire. Then he sets them loose in the standing grain
of the Philistines to burn it up.
The
Philistines learn why it is Samson did it and they go and burn both Samson’s wife
and her father (15:6). Samson, in turn,
inflicts a great slaughter on them.
When
the Philistines come against Judah
because of Samson, the people of Judah understandably want to turn him over to
them. They bind him and leave him for
them to get. Again, “the spirit of the
Lord rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms become like flax that
has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands” (15:14). He finds a donkey’s
jawbone and with it killed 1000 Philistines.
The Lord provides him with water and he remains judge in Israel for 20
years.
Augustine (354-430 AD)
Confessions
3 - Since, then, you fill
heaven and earth, do they contain you?
Or, as they contain you not, do you fill them, and yet there remains something over? And where do you pour forth that
which remains of you when the heaven and earth are filled? Or, indeed, is there
no need that you who contains all things should be contained of any, since
those things which you fill you fill by containing them? For the vessels which
you fill do not sustain you, since should they even be broken you will not be
poured forth. And when you are poured
forth on us, Acts 2:18 you are not cast down, but we are uplifted; nor are you
dissipated, but we are drawn together. But, as you fill all things, fill
them with your whole self, or, as even all things cannot altogether contain you,
do they contain a part, and do all at once contain the same part? Or has each
its own proper part — the greater more, the smaller less? Is, then, one part of
you greater, another less? Or is it that you are wholly everywhere while
nothing altogether contains you?
To what
extent can God be “contained” in something physical? Is there more than God in
us? What “remains” of God after He “pours Himself” into all that is? Can there
be part of God experienced, not all?
That we can even ask these questions shows a little pride in our
ability to understand reality, but the questions are part of the “reaching out”
that is just the way we are – looking for that “parent”, that “teacher”
[picture Helen Keller flailing around when she finally GETS the connection
between the “words” her teacher has taught her and the reality she is in, that
these word will help her unlock], that “likeness” of us that can unveil the
mystery. I personally think God is “contained in the creation.” In a way that
is the insight Christianity gives us, the knowledge that the Logos, the inward
order of all that is, is One with the Father – consubstantial with the Father.
But that inward order is complex. Just look at the world outside your window –
the trees, the clouds, the landscape untouched by man. There are no straight lines out there – our way
of creating order in the things we design, but the order is just as present in
the lines God creates.
As to whether we can experience “part” of God, I think every part,
every portal leads to something that feels very huge and amazing, but we can
always imagine more. I think we are too small to even imagine all that God is.
So we contain a “part.”
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