EPISODE SEVENTEEN: AND THE WHEEL GOES AROUND

…you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

We have come to the end of I Peter, but not to the end of the discussion.

Last week, just as our Bible study group was breaking up for the morning, my pastor came in to find me. He asked if I could spare a couple of minutes to come to his office. When I arrived a few minutes later, he said that he had been praying for me and just wanted to check in with me to see how I was doing. We hadn’t really discussed this gender controversy that is plaguing our fellowship of churches but he knew what the decision I suspect is inevitabe could cost me. I knew he calls himself a soft complementarian and has valued the ministry of people like Jill Briscoe and Hilary Price (who he says is a better speaker than even her husband, Charles, who was pastor of the famed People’s Church in Toronto).

I really appreciated this unexpected concern on his part. We talked for a while about the situation. Neither of us has a crystal ball to tell us how this is all going to play out in our fellowship of churches but we both agree that this will be a lose-lose situation.

Later that same day, I got an email from a respected pastor, theologian, and author. He was checking in about some of his books which I will promote at our national conference, but also mentioned a post I had written about Olive Copp. She was the daughter of a wealthy manufacturing family in Hamilton who gave up that life and every creature comfort and privilege to go to northern Ontario back in the 1920s to work among the miners, loggers, and the women who serviced them. Olive would later be a mentor to several of the young male missionaries who would come to work among the Francophones in Northwestern Quebec.

I would like to be encouraged. But I know that today capable, called women who are serving Jesus faithfully and well are being increasingly denigrated, discouraged, and denied simply because they are women.

Which brings me to this post and one particular woman: Abigail. Remember her? She appears in Scripture at a pivotal point in the life of David. In fact, God uses her to save David from making a terrible mistake. He also uses Abigail to confirm God’s calling on David’s life to be king.

The story is told in 1 Samuel 25. But before we get there, let’s look at the “bookends” of the story. In 1 Samuel 24 and 1 Samuel 26, two of David’s encounters with Saul are described. At this point in history, there are two kings in Israel: Saul, who had been the people’s choice when they demanded that Samuel give them a king so that they could be like the pagan nations around them, and David, who had been God’s choice for king, but who was currently being pursued by Saul.

In 1 Samuel 24, David, on the run from Saul, has the opportunity to kill Saul and to secure the position of king for himself. He does not take that opportunity, declaring, “The LORD forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the LORD’s anointed. May I never lift my hand against him since he is the LORD’s anointed” (24:6). He chooses to do the right thing. In 1 Samuel 26, David will have another opportunity to kill Saul and secure his kingdom. Once more he resists the temptation, again declaring, “But the LORD forbid that I should stretch out my hand against the LORD’s anointed…” (26:11). Again David chooses to do the right thing. In Saul’s final battle, David is actually prevented from participating (he was then a servant of Achish, who would meet Saul on that battlefield). David kept that commitment not to harm Israel’s king until the end of Saul’s reign.

David’s hands were bloody by virtue of the life he was forced by circumstances to lead, but not with Saul’s blood.

But in 1 Samuel 25, David comes very close to losing control and becoming guilty of an atrocity that would have marked him and his reign forever. He is about to do the wrong thing.

Enter Abigail.

Samuel has died (25:1). He had been Israel’s spiritual anchor in challenging times. It appears that David was at the burial of the man who had anointed him. Then he went into the wilderness with his army. An army marches on its stomach, so, apparently, said Frederick the Great (and Napoleon Bonaparte). David and his men had protected local landowners and farmers from marauders during their years running from Saul. This protection was paid for in provisions that sustained David’s band of not-so-merry men. When they arrived in Carmel, they came across a wealthy landowner and sheep farmer whom they had protected in the past and expected that this farmer, Nabal by name, would give them provisions.

But Nabal was a stingy, meanhearted, offensive person and refused. David was incensed. “Strap on your swords…In vain I have protected all that belonged to this man in the wilderness. Nothing that belongs to him has gone missing, yet he has paid me back evil for good. May God punish David, and every so severely, if I let one of Nabal’s men survive until morning” (25:13, 21, 22).

Notice that David not only has declared his intention to kill Nabal but also to kill Nabal’s servants who were not responsible for their master’s decision.

Nabal’s wife, Abigail, is informed about the situation by one of the servants. Hers was probably an arranged marriage—normal for the times—particularly since the passage tells us that Abigail was as intelligent as she was beautiful. She likely would not have chosen such a mean-spirited, nasty husband if she had had a choice.

But whatever the circumstances, Abigail immediately defies her husband (the consequences of her decision could have been dangerous for her on all fronts), and organizes the food train to take to David and his men. She does not ask her husband’s permission (which would have been pointless anyway given his character—his name means “fool” and that was who he was). Verses 23-31 record Abigail’s words to David when she meets him on the road. She reminds David of who he is as God’s chosen.

Everyone in Israel likely knows all about the situation between David and Saul. They know the story—a king chosen by the people and a king-in-waiting appointed by God, rivals for the throne. Whether her words are simply a response to what is already known, or prophetic as a message laid on her heart to deliver to David and inspired by the Spirit of God, we don’t know. But we do see an astute woman, courageous and wise, who steps between two men bent on evil. Abigail is not silent or cowed. She acts and enters the stage of history in a remarkable way.

Abigail stops David from shedding innocent blood.

“Then David said to Abigail, ‘Blessed by the LORD the God of Israel, who sent you t meet me this day! Blessed is your discernment, and blessed are yum because today you kept me from bloodshed and from avenging myself by my own hand. Otherwise, as surely as the LORD, the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from harming you, if you have not come quickly to meet me, then surely no male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by morning light’” (vss 32-34).

We know how the story ends—Nabal is struck down by God. But David then does a very smart thing. A good leader surrounds himself with wise advisors, and David has recognized that Abigail is one of those. Also, she is a widow and unprotected. So he claims her and marries her, protecting her and gaining her wisdom and discernment as events move him toward the kingship that awaits him.

David is not diminished by listening to a woman. He is strengthened, affirmed, and protected from evil by listening to the right woman.

One of the things that most bothers me about this current debate on the place of women in the church is the growing tendency to refuse to recognize and value the gifts that God has given His women—women like Abigail, like Phoebe, like Junia, like Prisca, like Olive, like Jill, like Hilary. Beneath the discussion of who can be a pastor/elder in the church lie other, much more sinister layers. Silencing, diminishing, denying, denigrating those who are also image-bearers, joint-heirs with Jesus, gifted by the Spirit of God reveals more Nabal-like characteristics among us than David-like characteristics.

Toward the end of 1 Peter, as the apostle wraps up his letter to believers scattered abroad, he writes, “And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore you, secure you, strengthen you, and establish you. To Him be the power forever and ever. Amen” (5:10, 11). As I read these words, I see Abigail. Her marriage to Nabal was likely a nightmare, but God took her and used her as she stepped out to do the right thing and to bravely speak for Him.

However the debate on the issue of what women can and cannot be and do among our churches ends up; my own personal prayer is that our women who follow Jesus will not be deterred or derailed by what men decide for them—and it is men who are making this decision. My prayer is that they will look to Jesus, who has called them, and count on Him to restore, secure, strengthen, and establish them exactly as HE chooses.