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Does God’s Spirit bring gentleness or violence?

Hard question · Who God is · raised by 2 of the lists sceptics circulate

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The passages

Galatians 5:22–23

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith”, meekness and self-control.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Judges 13:5

Before his birth Samson is called to “begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines”.

For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.

Judges 15:14–15

When the Philistines come to seize him, “the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him”; he breaks his bonds and kills a thousand men.

And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands. And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.

1 Samuel 16:14

“The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.”

But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.

1 Samuel 18:10–11

When “the evil spirit from God came upon Saul”, he raved and hurled a javelin at David.

And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul’s hand. And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.

The objection

Paul says that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith” (Galatians 5:22). Yet when the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson he killed a thousand Philistines (Judges 15:14–15), and when “the evil spirit from God came upon Saul” he tried to pin David to the wall with a javelin (1 Samuel 18:10–11). God’s Spirit seems to produce violence as well as gentleness.

The answer

Three different things are in view. Galatians 5 describes the character that the Holy Spirit grows in believers over time. In Judges the Spirit’s coming on a judge is a gift of power for a task: Samson was called before birth to “begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines” (13:5), who at that time ruled over Israel (15:11). At Lehi the Spirit gave him strength to break the ropes and defeat the force sent to take him, an act of war on behalf of an oppressed people. The narrative is frank that Samson’s own motives were often revenge (15:7, 11); the Spirit’s gift of strength did not make him a good man, and the book does not hold him up as a model of character.

1 Samuel 18:10 is not about God’s Holy Spirit at all. When “the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul”, “an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him” (16:14): a harmful spirit God sent as judgment on Saul’s disobedience. Keil and Delitzsch note that it is never called ‘the Spirit of the Lord’. ‘Prophesied’ in 18:10 here means that Saul raved, and his spear-throwing came from his own jealousy of David (18:8–9). The Bible never says that the Spirit of God bears the fruit of cruelty in anyone.

From the classic commentators

This demon is called "an evil spirit (coming) from Jehovah," because Jehovah had sent it as a punishment … but never "the Spirit of Jehovah," because this is the Spirit proceeding from the holy God, which works upon men as the spirit of strength, wisdom, and knowledge, and generates and fosters the spiritual or divine life.Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on 1 Samuel 16:14 (1857–78), at Bible Hub

Sources

Further reading

Raised by: W. H. Burr, Self-Contradictions of the Bible (1860), EvilBible.com. Only the verse references come from these lists.

Checked 2026-10-22. All hard questions