Thursday, December 11, 2008

Married to a fool, part 2

14 One of the servants told Nabal's wife Abigail: "David sent messengers from the desert to give our master his greetings, but he hurled insults at them. 15 Yet these men were very good to us. They did not mistreat us, and the whole time we were out in the fields near them nothing was missing. 16 Night and day they were a wall around us all the time we were herding our sheep near them. 17 Now think it over and see what you can do, because disaster is hanging over our master and his whole household. He is such a wicked man that no one can talk to him." 1 Samuel 25

Abigail must have been held in high regard by this servant and he trusted her judgment. She was a woman of wealth but notice that she wasn't so proud that she couldn't listen to a lowly servant.

Do others hold you high regard?

Do you humble yourself and listen to them?

David is coming; there is no time for delay. If you are married to a fool are you indecisive?

 18 Abigail lost no time. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs [b] of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys.

Where did she get all of that? Could it be she took the stuff from the party Nabal is planning?

19 Then she told her servants, "Go on ahead; I'll follow you." But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

Really? She did all of this behind his back? Not the submissive wife, huh?

 20 As she came riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, there were David and his men descending toward her, and she met them. 21 David had just said, "It's been useless—all my watching over this fellow's property in the desert so that nothing of his was missing. He has paid me back evil for good. 22 May God deal with David, [c] be it ever so severely, if by morning I leave alive one male of all who belong to him!"

 23 When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground. 24 She fell at his feet and said: "My lord, let the blame be on me alone. Please let your servant speak to you; hear what your servant has to say. 25 May my lord pay no attention to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name is Fool, and folly goes with him. But as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my master sent.

She humbles herself before David, taking the blame on herself and pleading with David not to take Nabal seriously, he's a fool. By doing this she is not only attempting to save his life, but the lives of her household.

Ok, so what about wives submitting and honoring their husbands? Well, first of all he is a fool, that is his namesake, secondly she humbled herself, becoming a scapegoat for his actions and saving his life…seems pretty submissive to me.

Do you have that kind of courage? Character?

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