Abigail's Apology to Men
a 1 Samuel 25:14-31 rewrite for devalued men
Note: This is a 1 Samuel 25:14-31 rewrite as if the men of Christendom had been insulted by the women and were using their power to seek 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 partying and drunk 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 control ourselves.
1 Samuel 25:14-31
One of the servants told Abigail, a child of God, “David sent messengers from the wilderness to give our women greetings, but the women hurled insults at them. Yet these men were very good to us. They did not mistreat us, and the whole time we lived with them, they never took advantage of us. Night and day they were a wall around us while we were shepherding our flocks, tending our children, and raising our families. Now think it over and see what you can do, because disaster is hanging over our women 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 Christ, 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 David and his men descending toward her, and she met them. David had just said, “It’s been useless—all my watching over women’s welfare by marching into battles for them and giving them my paycheck and protecting them from predators in the wilderness so that nothing of theirs was missing. They have paid me back evil for good. As mothers, they have scolded my sense of adventure in their house. They have forced me to sit still in their woman-led classrooms. They have tried to manipulate me in my own home. They have kick me out of my workplace and undermined my authority in our churches, saying they can do it just as well as I can. May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if there ever comes a morning where I give them one hope of ever ruling beside me!”
When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground. She fell at his feet and said: “Pardon your servant, my lord, and let me speak to you. Hear what your servant has to say even though you are tired of listening to women.
“Please pay no attention, my lord, to those wind-blown women who have devalued you. 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 have not honored your blood spent safeguarding our lands. They have not regarded your work with grateful hearts. They have not treated you like they would like to be treated. And they have spent your gifts flippantly for their own satisfaction.
“As for me, your servant, I did not perceive my lords’ requests. I did not recognize your cry for Christ. And now, my lord, as surely as the Lord your God lives and as you live, since the Lord has kept you from using your own power to avenge yourself with your own hands, may your enemies and all who are intent on devaluing my lord be like the woman folly in Proverbs. And let this gift of Christ’s valuing, empowering, and equipping you because of the cross, which your servant brings to remind my lord, be given to the men who follow you.
“Please forgive your servant’s presumption. The Lord your God will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my lord, 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 church families to take your lives, your life will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the Lord your God, but the lives of your enemies, and any woman who uses your strength, value, or knowledge for her own satisfaction, he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling.
“When the Lord has fulfilled for my lord every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him ruler over a new earth, my lord will not have on your conscience the staggering burden of needlessly clinging to power or of having avenged yourself by not treating women as you would like to be treated. And when the Lord your God has brought my lord success, remember the women who feel as devalued, insecure, and powerless as you have felt.”