Abigail - Episode 1: A King, a Fool, and a Wise Woman

imagine asking someone to describe you in just three words I'd settle for fun wise and creative thoughtful and hospitable may be capable attentive remarkable what if the three words they use to describe you or me were harsh and badly behaved difficult people we've all got them whether it's the co-worker you just can't seem to work with or the family member who points out your every fault or the spouse who doesn't seem to budge in improving your marriage welcome to the women in the Bible podcast I'm Erin Davis and I'll be your host as we walk through the study Abigail it's all about learning to deal with the difficult people in your life first Samuel 25 tells the story of a remarkable woman named Abigail who shows us that we can deal with difficult people with grace and faith the difficult person in her life the Bible actually does describe him in those three words I mentioned earlier harsh and badly behaved so open your Bible turn to 1st Samuel 25 and join us as we look at the life of Abigail [Music] [Music] welcome to the women of the Bible podcast I'm Aaron Davis we're so glad that you're joining us and this season is all about a woman of the Bible you may not have studied before her name is Abigail and I'm joined with some great friends I'm going to be walking through Abigail's story together over the next few episodes I would love for them to introduce themselves to you first of my friend Keisha Keisha tell the ladies who are listening about yourself hi everyone my name is Keisha Griffin and I am from Los Angeles where I attend church my husband is the pastor there and I also serve in the women's ministry there I'm also a blogger Bible thinking woman and I just look forward to this great study of Abigail together have you always lived in LA always you do you love anyways love it okay accept the cost yes sure I've been to LA a few times and I have to say I'm a farm girl who lives on a farm in Missouri and the the number of roads and the number of people it was a little overwhelming to me but someday I'm gonna come to LA and beyond the price is right okay joined by another friend joy tell us about yourself I am joy McLean and I'm just south of Indianapolis and mine been married for 34 years have six perfect grandchildren I'm a writer blogger same farm girl spent a lot of time in the barn good stuff yeah me too I live on a hobby farm in Missouri we're not real farmers but we have a garden in me if she even we have goats we're gonna talk all about that when we meet the people in this story because they had sheep and they had goats but we promised we didn't bring you here to talk about sheep and goats but us farm girls could talk about our animals endlessly we hope that you're gathered with a group of friends like we are ladies tell me if this is the same in your life my life has been so impacted by opening the Bible with other women I mean I love to go to church with every kind of people I love opening the Bible at home but there's just something about gathering around a table in a living room in a Sunday School class with other women and opening the Word of God and so that's what we're here to do if it sounds like we're just three ladies in a Bible we're just three ladies in a Bible City that's what it's supposed to sound like we are not theologians we I don't know about you but I don't have a bunch of fancy Bible degrees I just love the Word of God and I open the Word of God and that's what we're gonna do here together we might talk over each other a little bit just like we would in a Bible study yeah we might interrupt each other we might move from serious spiritual concepts to you know our favorite lip gloss just like we did what do you know Bible study and we want you to feel like you're a part of that one thing I love about these women of the Bible podcast is we hear from a lot of women that they're doing this in community we heard from one mom she was doing a women of the Bible study with her daughter who lived in another state they don't have the opportunity to study the Bible together but they listen to the podcast together they walk through the study together and we love that that's what we want to see happening so our goal is to point you to God's Word over and over and over as we're in the word ourselves so let's jump in when you think of women of the Bible I want to know the names that come to mind just top of your mind the women of the Bible who are the ones that come to mind first thing mmm Mary Mary I think we are going to as we walk through this study we are all just gonna grow in our affection for Abigail we see in her this woman of poise this woman of faith this woman of grace but she really doesn't get much real estate in the Bible unlike Esther she doesn't get a whole book Esther gets a whole book you know Mary rightfully so gets a lot of passages dedicated to her Debra we think of Deborah when we think of the judges even even Mary Magdalene some of those women Mary Martha there's lots of Mary's in the Bible we think of women in the Bible we think of them but Abigail is this sort of hidden treasure and that is what I love about the Bible it is like a diamond mine how long have you been studying in the Bible Keisha I would say probably really studying for the last seven years okay plea okay dude you know my background come from some crazy theological background so I'm had to relearn a lot of things and so I would say Deeply truly studying the Bible probably about seven years enjoy how long do you think you've been studying about twenty years okay I think I'm probably somewhere in between those numbers I I've been walking with the Lord somewhere in the 25 year range I had my 20th spiritual birthday not long not too many years ago but I knew Jesus for a long time before I ever opened the Bible for myself and but now I love the Word of God I can't get enough of it and one of the things I love about it is you can read your Bible every day and every time you open it you're gonna go know that was there I've never seen that before or maybe it's a verse that you're very familiar with but suddenly it sparkles like a diamond in the mind and it means something to you that it hasn't met before and so I feel like run a little bit of a treasure I think I might have known she was in there maybe I'd heard her name I don't know but I certainly didn't know the story in the way that we are gonna look at the story so she's a diamond a diamond we're gonna find but we're gonna let's backtrack a little bit because it's always so helpful when we look at scripture to take the widest angle view that we can take every word in the Bible is part of a sentence every sentence part of a paragraph three paragraph part of a thought all part of a book and all that's part of the whole Council of God so we want to be careful not to use what I call the chloral method you know those claw machines that you are a total ripoff where you put fifty cents in and the claw drops out oh I was so close to getting that but you're never gonna get it sometimes we can do that with Scripture we can just pluck out a verse or a thot bits and pieces and fortunately all Scripture is god-breathed and useful for instruction so even when we pluck things out there still God breathed they're still useful but as we study the Bible it's so good to just take a minute get as much background information as you can quickly gather I'm interested you you study Bibles how do you get the wide-angle view before you dig into a passage go ahead join I just love to read I contextually like the whole get the whole big picture you read the whole book and then get the big picture then go back and when I start diving and I really paint it to the verbs I think what God is doing what the Holy Spirit doing what's Jesus doing you know what the characters are but if you really I just have found for me personally if I really lock into those verbs and see where it's going and then you know a journal like journaling journal and flesh it out and but yeah I like to get the big picture then dive in and get just kind of start dissecting yes yes you sure yes I actually do the same and I also like to use a Study Bible more so to get the historical context of of the Scriptures background setting theme and then dive in just like joy so yeah it's very important to hear get the context verse yeah a great Study Bible put all that information for you right up front I'm a writer I'm a creative so sometimes trying to trace historical lines and figure that stuff it's hard for me so I'm so grateful to Study Bible yes creators who put it right there for me and so somebody did the thinking for me here in 1st Samuel 25 but I thought we just do an overview there's an overview in the study let's look at that really quickly on page 9 my cities all torn up because I've loved it so well but let's look at who the author is the Bible does not say who wrote first Samuel but many scholars think that the prophet Samuel Nathan and God provided much of the material we I've always have to list God as an author all Scripture is god-breathed and useful for instruction and the book covers about a hundred and ten years and it takes place in the Land of Israel so let's put our minds there what we're talking about and let me just read us the first verse and then we're gonna stop there first Samuel 25 verse 1 now Samuel died that's the first sentence how's that for well what an opener and all Israel assembled and mourned for him and they buried him in his house at Rhema now this is a Bible study about Abigail so we might be tempted to go oh that's a little tell about Samuel why does it matter but I think it's worth drilling down there a little bit what do you know about Samuel from Scripture who is Samuel what do you know well he was dedicated right and he was set apart I think I love that even before birth as Hannah prayed and hoped and believed and trusted that God was gonna give her this child he was so set apart and it seems like from we all are really but he was so purposely intimately with God's hand just set apart for his work I love that piece about his coat and that's prior to him even being born yes yes right and through Hannah's prayer she that was her her promise to God if I conceived I will dedicate this child back to you and that's exactly what she did so Samuel is a promise a fulfilled promise and so I love that knowing that about him and he fulfilled that that promise you know so yeah Hannah is Samuels mama and we see her in Scripture praying so intensely that the Prophet thinks she's drunk and she just wanted to be a mama so badly and she makes this vow to the Lord if you will allow me to conceive I will dedicate my boy to the temple whoa that was a bold prayer and she does it and so that boy becomes Samuel there's a little nugget in there that doesn't pertain to our look at Abigail but I just love it that talks about how Hannah would visit Samuel every year and bring him a tiny coat a little tunic I mean every mama understands the the impact the meaning of tiny clothes and it's right there in Scripture God so cares about the intimate details of our heart so he's promised he's dedicated to the temple and he first starts to hear the voice of the Lord as a little boy he's laying down in the temple and he hears something and he runs to Eli and he goes what was that Eli says like everybody go back to bed son and then that keeps happening and it's the voice of the Lord and joy would you read us First Samuel 3:19 I will and Sammy will grew and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground what do you think that means that none of his words fall to the ground I wonder if it's like his promise you know God you know promised so nothing was for naught I mean he was faithful to see it through and how beautiful that is for Hannah yeah you know that God made a promise to me and he fulfilled it he kept his promise yeah he didn't have empty words they kind of went out like darts and Samuel had this impact on the nation of Israel that is so important for us to set the stage for before we look at David and Abigail Abigail enable God's hand rested on Samuel from before conception until here we see him die verse 20 tells us that he had a reputation of faith in 1st Samuel 3 first Samuel 25 he died and the nation is in mourning and we need that backdrop because we're gonna see David here in a minute and we need to know that David was grieving this is who do you think Samuel was - David he's the prophet of Israel but how would you describe maybe his impact on David's life like a mentor and just a spiritual leader and just almost like a covering you know an authority figure like someone to emulate someone to respect and honor yeah yeah he had served as a buffer between David and Saul we're gonna talk here in a minute there's this really dysfunctional tension between Saul and David and Samuel had been a spiritual intermediary between those Samuel was the one who anointed David is King remember that story he goes to David's house no tries to go through all the brothers dances weathers day and Samuel we see him as a man of conviction he says go get him and I'm not sitting down until he comes here and the Lord speaks to Samuel and says arise he's the one and so it's Samuel that that puts purpose on David's lies that anoints him that gives him a calling he's a mentor he's a pastor he's a leader and he's died I wonder if either of you have experienced something like that a person of influence in your life a spiritual influence in your life who's died and and what's been the heart impact Keesha I haven't had that you have not yet blessings yeah yeah I think just in the big view picture I remember when Elizabeth Elia died I never knew or never met her but she made such a mark on my life you know just her teachings her heart her truth that she had no problem being bold about speaking when Billy Graham died I felt that loss I sure used to when I was in middle school send away for his free books you know and just love them but personally I had a great aunt who loved the Lord and had such a life of tragedy her husband her son both committed suicide Wow and she had a third loss her son died during college he was only there like a month and he was killed but she had although she had this great heartache and heart-wrenching sorrow upon her life she always loved the Lord and she always persevered in her faith and never let those things stop her and her life was very simple she was a farm wife but she just led this life of such diligence in her faith she had such tenacity incredible sorrow that she dealt with every single day but at when she died when she passed away she loved music and she taught piano saw her grandkids sang all these great little songs like Jesus Loves Me and all this and but it was a remarkable that everybody there like in talking you know after the service they were same really the same thing the essence of what they said was she was the most faithful woman they ever known now that's a legacy see and so the woman never traveled probably ten miles from her home but the impact she had on the community is profound and so she I have her picture black and white she's out there collecting eggs on my fridge just as a reminder of what a godly faithful woman looks like no matter the circumstance I love that I think when those people leave our lives for whatever reason there's a vacuum and there's a little bit of a there's a little bit of a loss of equilibrium and that's where David is his mentor his pastor his his spiritual guide the man who's put a calling on his life has died and there's some other circumstances going on and I just want us to keep that in mind because we're gonna talk about dealing with difficult people and we're gonna reflect on if we're difficult people and David faces difficult circumstances and sometimes that turns us in difficult people I've heard it said that hurt people hurt people sometimes difficult people come out of difficult circumstances but I also want us to just take a minute here to talk about some best practices for studying God's Word there's a reason we took all that time to paint all that backdrop about David and about Samuel about people we're not necessarily going to focus on in this study 2nd Timothy 2:15 tells us to make every effort to rightly handle the Word of God and if we're supposed to make effort to rightly handle it it's possible to wrongly handle it now every time you open your Bible it's profitable but I think there's some good things for us to keep in mind we always look for the bigger picture that's what we just did it just took us a few minutes you can do that anytime you read your Bible we assume something is literal and we unless we have a reason to believe it's figurative so this isn't an imaginary story it's not a fable meant to tell us a lesson although it will teach us a lesson it actually happened Abigail existed David existed navel existed this this timeline existed on the timeline of history and here's the important one for us to remember we always take a god-centered approach to scripture I don't know where along the line I figured this out but the Bible is not a book about me it's a book about God and do you do you ladies face the temptation to look at scripture looking for yourself and immediately want to jump to application me too this is supply right now right now right only flows out of right understanding and so while we're gonna be talking about people in this podcast we want to take a god-centered approach we're looking for God the purpose of scriptures to reveal the character of God and so we're looking for God in this story Oh any other principles you like to keep in mind as you're studying scripture joy is god-breathed in the Holy Spirit is mean he's my resident teacher and even if I'm struggling with the passage or just you know how does not just apply to me because that yes guilty sure but just how can make help this make sense to me and and really flesh it out but I know that the Holy Spirit he desires the Lord desires for me to understand yeah that's a great point yeah I echo that and I also think that it's important for us to realize when we're reading the Bible that it's not about us but it is about Jesus where is Jesus in this story because ultimately I mean he himself said you're searching the Scriptures not realizing they're pointing to me I am it's about me so I just think that trying to remember that we're trying to have a relationship with God we're not just collect facts and to know scriptures so we can you know debate with others or but it's really about trying to understand who God is and build on that relationship right that's a good you know I would imagine any woman who picked up a Bible study on dealing with difficult people has a difficult person in their mind and what we don't want you to do is to use this story to beat that difficult person over that that's not the point the point is to find God in it and as we'll talk about in the future would trust God to deal with those difficult people and he may use the study to reveal that we are the difficult person so I want us to meet the people will spend the next six sessions walking through this study with first we have David we've talked a lot about David he had been anointed king at this point he had defeated Goliath at this point he's not yet King Saul is still king but God had taken his anointing away from Saul because of sauce disobedience and Saul's jealousy has grown and he's already tried to kill David a couple of times and when we find David here in 1st Samuel 25 David is on the run from the anger of salt he's got a whole bunch of friends with him he's not exactly camping alone in the wilderness but he's on the run from the anger and the wrath of Saul then we meet the guy we're gonna learn to love to hate Mabel and I just have to say we're not gonna like him we're we're looking for redemption and everybody he is Nabal us made in the image of God but we're not gonna like navel he is he is easy to not like so who's got verses 2 through 3 I will write night for us now there was a man in my own whose business was in Carmel and the man was very rich and he had 3,000 sheep in a thousand goats and it came about while he was shearing the sheep and Carmel now the man's name was Nabal and his wife's name was Abigail and the woman was intelligent and beautiful in appearance but the man was harsh and evil in his dillings and he was a caliphate okay so we get a lot of information right there I mean if this was Naples Twitter bio we would have what we need to know about the man so what do we see what do we know about enable just from these two verses right harsh he's harsh evil he's evil and he's also very wealthy he's rich it's a great responsible he's rich he has a lot of sheep he has a lot of goats Joe and I both have livestock how many ghosts do you have well not a thousand no me neither I don't have goats anymore cuz goats don't like to stay in fences do you have that problem so he's probably an open pasture somewhere so goats are always giving trouble they are on Rihanna Rihanna I do have sheep we probably have 20 sheep but this is a man who is rich he's wealthy it reminds me of that verse that the Lord sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous it's not necessarily a sign of your faithfulness if you have a lot of wealth or not that's not a good litmus test but he is wealthy and your past is how does your passage describe him can you read it to us again harsh harsh and evil in his dealing and evil in his dealings guys says then that sorry sorry it's the NES ok yours is NASB - says harsh and badly behaved joy what's your sadly badly behaved I asked that because you know when we're not in here in a room with women who believe like we believe and and trust the Bible like we do one thing we'll hear out there is well you're all reading different Bibles anyway you don't even know what you believe and that's just not true we're reading different translations and we get the same picture of Nabal we just still don't like the man he is harsh he's evil he's badly behaved he's hard to like it also says he's a Kayla bite yeah and this is where you'd have to do some digging again and I would say as you're reading the Bible on your own if there's those questions if you don't know what that is pay attention it's not a race and take some time and dig so kayla was one of the two spies who trusted the Lord to go into the Promised fan land you probably singing that song Tim we're bad and - we're good right so a Caleb and Joshua were the two that went into the land and they saw the grapes that they could carry on poles and they saw a land flowing with milk and honey and they said the Lord has promised us this land let's take it and the ten other spies said no we can't do it so Caleb we see in caleb a faithful man who trusted god numbers 13 6 tells us he's of the tribe of judah who else is of the tribe of judah jesus that's right so there are the same tribe so Nabal though he's evil and is dealing so he's harsh though he's badly behaved his lineage is people of God so I don't know what happened there we lost his ways then we get to Abigail and as much as navel will annoy us Abigail will intrigue us so let's read about Abigail and verse three now the name of the man was navel and the name of his wife Abigail the woman was discerning and beautiful what a combination but the man was harsh and badly behaved and he was a Caleb I discerning and beautiful what a great description and I'm curious what words would you like others to use when they describe you if somebody called me discerning and beautiful I'd be okay with that why don't ya that's okay but what words would you love for people used to describe you I actually like the word discerning I do too I like it I mean wisdom yes she's full of wisdom that's what I want to be so I love wisdom discerning who doesn't want to be beautiful yeah a beautiful just tech that we are so yea discerning wisdom full of wisdom love that yeah faithful yes trusting yes good Joey what what are you able to say about you just ditto what she said it yeah full of grace full of mercy you know full of love just you know you want people when they walk away from me to feel like they've not just been with you so much as they've had an encounter with the Lord I love that yeah my pastor said from the pulpit a couple weeks ago Erin knows her Bible and I thought I can die right now that's as good as it gets put that on my tombstone somebody's there knows her bottle I said that I want actually to have you know that I finished my race if people could say I make the best chocolate chip cookie in the world we see in Abigail is that she is discerning she's beautiful as we read about her we'll see she's a woman of grace even though she lives with a difficult man and there are women listening who live with a difficult man or a difficult child or difficult neighbor a difficult parent yes and yet we see in her a woman who's discerning and beautiful and then there's David we know some things about David's character already we when we think of David we might think about his sin with Bathsheba that hasn't happened yet but we see a man of faith we see a man of courage he's the one that slayed the Giant he is fought lions he obeys the Lord and these are the people that we're gonna spend some time with and trying to learn how to deal with difficult people and what they teach us is that we don't have to let harsh and badly behaved people turn us into harsh and badly behaved people because they respond differently to this man that scripture is clear isn't very much fun to be around and and to circle us back to David this is a man who's grieving yeah this is a man who's on the run yes this is a man who's probably under a lot of stress the king wants to kill him and yet we'll see in him a choice he doesn't have to respond in harsh ways so there's some questions in the study that I thought we just walk women through I don't know how you're listening to this I don't know if you're in your car I don't know how you're listening but I would encourage you when you can to get yourself to page 15 in the study and there's some tough questions here we're not gonna walk through all of them here in the podcast but I thought we'd tackle a couple of them and I'll tell you what I do if I was doing this Bible study for myself I would consider these rhetorical I would think I don't have to actually answer those questions because they're there on the list those are sweet I hope so but we want women to do is actually talk about these with each other actually ask these questions of the Lord and invite him to do some work so here it is a my sometimes impossible to deal with I'll let y'all go first I would hope not yeah but I'm sure there are moments will.i.am well you know what I am impossible to deal with yeah at least my husband probably will say that yeah that's who we should ask this question yeah yeah really we should ask our husbands but yeah I'm sure there are times when I'm impossible to deal with yeah yes yeah especially with my husband you know and that may look at temperament just attitude just being you know short with him or my expectations yeah yes that can go a mile down the road yes yes with my husband alone yeah yeah my husband is actually in the other room listening to us record there's a front row seat to I'm sure there are I can think of some of the things that trigger that in me when I'm tired I should just go to bed yeah because I can get so out of sorts and little things can become big things everything becomes a mountain when it's all just mole hills right or or when I'm overextended I know myself I know that I can basically handle two evenings a week where we're running and we have four little boys so that's a hard boundary to keep and if we're running three or four nights a week I get impossible to deal with and you know I don't usually recognize it til I'm ugly I don't like that yeah but I think it's good for us to pause here and ask okay what are the things that make me hard to deal with here's a secondary question our people not honest with me for fear that all blow up and here's what I want us to think through who could we ask that question of do we have people in our lives that we could take that question to that the women in this Bible study could take that question to it's maybe not it's not a social media kind of question you don't want to throw that therefore the masses right but what kind of people would you encourage women to take that question to and ask for an honest answer I think there can family yeah yeah that's a family when I was gonna say church family actually yeah like for it for myself I'm very very close with the ladies of my church okay so I think this is a question that I can you know ask them is this you know have you ever been afraid to be honest with me in fear that I'll take it the wrong way hmm yeah and then we can't blow up when they give us a chance one good friend or maybe two Rams Bible study answer maybe it's your husband may be trusted for sure but I think it's part of walking through this study a bold and scary step would be to say what do you do you see this in me are there times when you're afraid to be honest with me because I'm impossible to other children you know teenage years this is so important imperative that they have that freedom and comfort to come to you rather than just hide and not speak and not just flare and anger when they bring something up that's so good our oldest is 11 we're starting to get into the yeah yeah we care about our hair very much all of a sudden I think it's good to ask those diagnostic questions as you as you parent and here we go another question from this list do I answer roughly rather than graciously we're gonna see an Abigail an opportunity to respond gruffly or roughly but instead she gives grace and we're in your own life do you see a temptation to be sharp or rough or gruff instead of responding with grace what are the things that trigger that for you joy I think well the hurricane family they think we could apply that all the time to our own household but I think when we're out and about like we're gonna hurry right the gas station we're at the store where it's something and and the person behind the counter if you know they're we need to have grace or grace for someone in line or just if someone cuts us off in the road I think just those brief encounters can can just really get to us I feel convicted I had the world's slowest Walmart checkered last week 35 minutes I was reading and I was like I didn't say anything but she got so impatient happen about you know in our communities we can just absolutely like annoyed it is actually my weakness here hmm because I am so direct mmm that it sometimes does not come across graciously yes my husband and you know my mom and probably friends can attest to that I I'm truthful and everyone you know appreciates being truthful but sometimes it just comes off a little too hard I have the same struck are you a first board yeah me too and and I say I'm not type am type type ee like I just asked yes so to me I'm saying this is the day let's get it does get it I've watched people melt under it [Music] so I I hope that as you're walking in this study you won't consider those questions rhetorical you don't actually walk through them and let's wrap this up by just telling the women who are on the other side what we hope for them you know we want them to walk through this study and we want the Lord to do something in their lives so if you could just have one hope Keisha for the woman who's gonna walk through this study with us what would it be my hope would be that if we are convicted it's a good thing to embrace that because ultimately it brings out the Christ likeness in us which we're trying to actually become more like Christ so don't reject or suppress that conviction or dismiss it but actually to embrace it and allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and through us so that we can extend that grace and love to others as well so yeah yes joy what's your hope I think you know obviously they're doing a study of Abigail they probably have a difficult person in their life or in a circumstance situation and so I would want to say to her that God is in it he's not forgotten you he sees you he sees your tears your frustration and as much as God wants to deal with that person he also wants to deal with you kind of like what you're saying that God is in this and he has not abandoned you and he's still working in your life I love that and I hope there's thousands of women who walk through this study in this podcast and I always like to think what could God do what could God do with thousands of women who decide to respond like Abigail what could God do with thousands of women who decide to be women of discernment and true beauty and so that would be my hope for us yes [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Revive Our Hearts

Views: 33,513

Rating: 4.9061279 out of 5

Keywords: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Revive Our Hearts, Womens Ministry, Ministry, Abigail, Bible Study, Women’s Bible Study, Study the Bible

Id: jbWdXjp3yhM

Length: 36min 35sec (2195 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 05 2020