One of the people our Sunday School teacher made a hero of, was Samson. Of course, it was war time and there were Nazies to hate but, since then, there have been a number of terrorists/freedom fighter organisations who have made me re-examine the Samson story and the lessons it teaches. When Samson arrived, the Israelites were dominated by the Philistines. Samson grew up, killed thousands with the jaw bone of an ass, married someone from their culture, was betrayed, blinded and took his revenge by pulling down their place of entertainment, thereby killing, not only himself, but more than he had when he was alive. After all that, the Israelites were still dominated by the Philistines. So, apart from the death of many Philistines, what had Samson achieved? It doesn't seem to have been a great deal, so what lessons does the story teach?
Firstly, as has been proved over and over since 1945, killing people solves very little. 
However, these notes are meant to deal with personal and relationship problems and it is necessary to look more closely at the incidents in the story. Samson was betrayed by his wife, a wife he had taken from outside his culture. That's not the same as race or social class, it's the philosophy we live by, how we see our social responsibilities. For a relationship, social, work, or business to work, partners' cultures have to overlap. For some reason, it is better if they have areas of difference that have to be worked on, but the overlap must be considerable or one partner will betray the other.

Then there is the question of revenge. Samson’s efforts may have altered the demographics but each tit following a tat only escalated the confrontation and solved nothing of the general problem of Philistine domination or equality between them and the Israelites. The same applies in relationships. Paying back some slight only encourages another. It’s not good to allow oneself to be trampled on but, ideally, one should leave the other party an honourable way out of a dispute.