Abigail's Apology for Women
a 1 Samuel 25:18-31 rewrite for devalued women
Note: This is a 1 Samuel 25:14-31 rewrite as if the women of Christendom had been insulted by the men and were using their womanly power to get revenge. It parallels the story of Abigail when she brings a peace offering to David for her husband, Nabal’s, foolishness. As you may recall Nabal was drunk at a party when Abigail did all this. I find it significant that in scripture being drunk on wine is another way of saying not being filled with the Holy Spirit. When not filled with Christ, we are like drunk people, unable to give gratitude to those who’ve helped bring us success.
1 Samuel 25:14-31
One of the servants told Abigail, a child of God, “Women sent requests from the wilderness, requesting that men share their rulership, but the men rejected them. Yet these women were very good to their husbands. They did not mistreat them, and the whole time the men were out in the fields, they kept the men’s house. Night and day they worked to make a home, soothe the children, prepare food, and support their men in prayer making a hedge of protection around them the whole time they were away. Now think it over and see what you can do, because disaster is hanging over our men and the whole church. Men and women are so foolish that no one can make peace between them.”
Abigail acted quickly. She took the Bread of Life, two skins of wine, which is the wrath of God poured out on Christ, a sheep dressed for sacrifice, the gift of hospitality, and the fruit that comes from the true vine, and loaded them on donkeys. Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead. I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell the angry men or women of her errand.
As she came riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, there were the angry women descending toward her, and she met them. The women had just been saying to themselves, “It’s been useless—all our staying home in isolation, caring for these men’s things so that everything is being well managed. They have paid us back evil for good. They don’t live in gratitude of all we do for them for they treat us like slaves to rule over. They have left us to bring up the children without help while they insist they’re still the boss of our homes and churches. They encourage needy women to come to them. They have failed to empower us to teach other women with equal authority, and they insist that ruling over us is God’s design for how they must love us. May God deal with us women, be it ever so severely, if by morning we leave any hope alive with men that we will ever value their manhood!”
When Abigail saw the angry women, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before them with her face to the ground. She fell at their feet and said: “Pardon your servant, my sisters, and let me speak to you. Hear what your servant has to say.
“Please pay no attention, my sisters, to those heart-starved men. They are just like those drunk on wine—they do not know where God’s love comes from, and they seek it in folly. They demand you empower them without empowering you. They do not give you equal authority to spiritually care for other women nor do they believe they need you for their own protection against women who would use them. They listen to you but do nothing. And they have spent your gifts flippantly on their own satisfaction.
“As for me, your servant, I did not perceive my sisters’ requests. I did not recognize your cry for love. And now, my sisters, as surely as the Lord your God lives and as you live, since the Lord has kept you from using your gifts to avenge yourself through your manipulative ways, may your enemies and all who are intent on denying you rulership in the church be like the man who built his house on the sand. And let this gift, Christ’s empowering you through the cross and the Bread of Life that nourishes your soul, which your servant brings to remind my sisters, be given to all who follow you.
“Please forgive your servant’s presumption. The Lord your God will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my sisters, because you fight the Lord’s battles instead of your own battles, and no wrongdoing will be found in you as long as you live. Even though the world of sin is pursuing you, your families, and your churches to take your lives, your lives will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the Lord your God, but the lives of your enemies, and any man who uses you to build up for himself his own little kingdom, God will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling.
“When the Lord has fulfilled for my sisters every good thing he promised you through his word and has appointed you to rule and reign with him here and now, my sisters will not have on your conscience the staggering burden of needlessly fighting for what only God provides or of having robbed men of the power to do their tasks even as they refuse to empower you to do yours. And when the Lord your God has brought my sisters success, remember the men who feel as devalued, insecure, and powerless as you have felt.”