The Samson Syndrome

But [Samson] did not know that the LORD had departed from him.

Judges 16:20

“If Samson were alive today, he’d be a superstar athlete or an action movie star,” says Mark Atteberry in his book, The Samson Syndrome. “Or he’d be a Navy SEAL or a world-champion prize fighter. He’d be on the cover of GQ or Sports Illustrated. He’d be surrounded by popping flashbulbs or adoring groupies.”^a

Yet for all his strength and charisma, Samson was a puppet of his own desires, and not until the end of his life did he learn the biblical maxim of self-control and personal discipline. He rejected accountability, shrugged off self-denial, thought he was too tough for good advice, didn’t establish personal boundaries, and didn’t realize until too late that he had become a product of his own lusts.

Paul was the opposite. His very name—Paul—meant “small.” But he was big for Christ. “I discipline my body,” he says in 1 Corinthians 9:27, “and bring it into subjection, lest . . . I myself should become disqualified.” Let’s follow the Paul Pattern and not succumb to the Samson Syndrome.

Discipline is the ability to say “no” to what is sin, “yes” to what is right, and to say “I will” to what ought to be done.

JERRY WHITE