THE BIBLE WON’T HELP ME in my role as the Best Man in a wedding on Saturday.
I won’t let it.
I refuse to do what Samson’s Best Man did.
It’s illegal.
- My wife would divorce me.
- My kids would stop letting me watch their dogs.
- My Christian publishers would shun me and probably recycle my books into pulp.
Samson’s best man
Samson’s bride got him so mad that he left her on their stay-at-home honeymoon, and he went back to his parents.
What she did cost him a lot of money because it made him lose a bet. He bet the men at his wedding celebration that if they could solve his riddle, he would give them each a set of clothes. If they lost, however, they would each have to give him a set of clothes.
Those guests were cheapskates and mean. They told the bride that they would kill her and her father if she didn’t nag the answer out of Samson and then tell them so they could win the bet.
That’s what she did.
After Samson stormed out, the Best Man was left holding the nag.
As Samson’s father-in-law later explained to him, “I thought you really hated your wife, so I gave her to your best man” (Judges 15:2).
I’m not sure where that tradition came from or where it went, but it sounds to me a lot like the tradition of a Second in a pistol-packing duel to the death. If the main duelist couldn’t finish what he started, the Second had to jump in there and take the shot.
All I want to do is carry the ring, toast the groom, and collect money during the Dollar Dance. Then I want to go home to my wife, my dog, and the two dogs of my son that we are watching while he and his wife are out of town to celebrate their wedding anniversary.
So as a Best Man, I would like to remind grooms everywhere:
A truly good wife
is the most precious treasure
a man can find!
Proverbs 31:10
For more about marriage in Bible times
- Why did Bible-time men have so many wives?
- How to break an engagement, biblical style
- Book: “Partying in Cana,” Understanding Jesus, pages 99-103
Blog subscribers who win books this week
- Kathy Ribbs
- Miguel Plascencia
I give away free books each week. It’s normally to randomly selected subscribers to my free blog and quarterly newsletter. But this time I picked two of the most recent subscribers. I’ll probably pick from the newbies for the next several weeks.
The winners will get the option of choosing my new release: A Quick Guided Tour Through the Bible – among about half a dozen other titles.
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