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

Erin Davis: Welcome to the Women of the Bible podcast! I’m Erin Davis. We’re so glad that you’re joining us! This season is all about a woman of the Bible you may not have studied before. Her name is Abigail.

Joining me are some great friends. We’re 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, I have my friend Kesha. Kesha, tell the ladies listening about yourself.

Kesha Griffin: Hi, everyone. My name is Kesha 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 a blogger: Bible Thinking Woman, and I just look forward to this great study of Abigail together.

Erin: Have you always lived in L.A.?

Kesha: Always, born and raised. Love it . . . except the cost! 

Erin: Yes, sure! I’ve been to L.A. a few times, and I have to say—I’m a farm girl who lives on a farm in Missouri—just the number of roads and the number of people was a little overwhelming to me! But someday I’m going to come to L.A. and be on the Price Is Right! 

Kesha: I’ll take you to visit.

Erin: Alright! I’m also joined by another friend, Joy. Tell us about yourself, Joy.

Joy McClain: I am Joy McClain, and I live just south of Indianapolis. I’ve been married for thirty-four years, have six perfect grandchildren, and am a writer, blogger. I’m the same—a farm girl. I spend a lot of time in the barn. That’s good stuff!

Erin: Me, too. I live on a hobby farm in Missouri. We’re not real farmers, but we have a garden, and we have sheep (and we did have goats). We’re going to talk all about that when we meet the people in this story . . . because they had sheep, and they had goats. But we promise we didn’t bring you here to talk about sheep and goats. We farm girls could talk about our animals endlessly! 

We hope that you’re gathered with a group of friends like we are. Joy and Kesha, 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 like to go to church with other kinds 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. So that’s what we’re here to do. If it sounds like we’re just three ladies in a Bible study . . . we’re just three ladies in a Bible study! That’s what it’s supposed to sound like. 

We are not theologians. 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 going to do here together. We might talk over each other a little bit (just like we would in a Bible study), yes? We might interrupt each other. 

We might move from serious, spiritual concepts to our favorite lip gloss, just like we would do in a Bible study. (laughter) We want you to feel like you’re a part of that. One thing I love about these Women of the Bible podcasts is that we hear from a lot of women, that they’re doing this in community. 

We heard from one mom who was doing a Women of the Bible study with her daughter who lives 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. 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! Joy and Kesha, when you think of women of the Bible, I want to know the names that come to mind, just at the top of your mind. Who are the ones who come to mind, first thing?

Kesha and Joy: : Deborah, Esther, Mary (of course!) and Abigail. 

Erin: Abigail! Now, I think as we walk through this study, we are all just going to grow in our affection for Abigail. We see 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. Deborah: we think of Deborah when we think of the judges in Israel. Even Eve and Mary Magdalene, some of those women . . . Mary and Martha (there are lots of Marys in the Bible!) . . . When 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. Kesha, how long have you been studying the Bible?

Kesha: I would say probably—really studying deeply—for the last seven years. You know my background. I come from some crazy theological background, so I had to re-learn a lot of things. 

Erin: And Joy, how long do you think you’ve been studying the Bible?

Joy: About twenty years.

Erin: Okay. I think I’m probably somewhere in-between those numbers. I’ve been walking with the Lord somewhere in the twenty-five year range. I had my twentieth spiritual birthday not too many years ago. But I knew Jesus for a long time before I ever opened the Bible for myself.

But now, I love the Word of God. I can’t get enough of it. One of the things I love about it is that you can read your Bible every day, and every time you open it you’re going to go, “I didn’t know that was there! I’ve never seen that before!”

Joy: Something new! 

Erin: Or maybe it’s a verse that you’re very familiar with, but suddenly it sparkles like a diamond in the mine. It means something to you that it hasn’t meant before. So I feel like we’re on a little bit of a treasure hunt. 

Kesha: I felt like that with Abigail.

Erin: I think I might have known she was in there—maybe I’d heard her name—but I certainly didn’t know the story in the way that we’re going to look at the story. So she’s a diamond . . . a diamond we’re going to find!

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, every paragraph part of a thought, all part of a book . . . and all of that’s part of the whole counsel of God. So we want to be careful not to use what I call “the claw method.”

You know those claw machines that are a total rip-off? Where you put fifty cents in and the claw drops down and, “Oh! I was so close to getting that!” But you’re never going to get it! Sometimes we can do that with Scripture: we can just pluck out a verse or a thought. 

Joy: Just bits and pieces, yes. 

Erin: Bits and pieces . . . and fortunately, all Scripture is God-breathed and useful for instruction (see 2 Tim. 3:16), so even when we pluck things out, they’re still God-breathed, they’re still useful. But as we study the Bible, it’s so good to just take a minute and get as much background information as you can quickly gather. 

I’m interested. Do you use study Bibles? How do you get the wide-angle view before you dig into a passage? Go ahead, Joy.

Joy: I just love to read contextually and get the whole big picture. I read the whole book, get the big picture, then I go back. When I start diving in, I really pay attention to verbs. I think what God is doing, what the Holy Spirit is doing, what is Jesus doing? What the characters are doing?

Erin: I love that!

Joy: I just have found for me, personally, if I really lock into those verbs and see where it’s going, and then I journal, I journal, I journal. I flesh it out. Yes, I like to get the big picture then dive in and just kind of start dissecting. 

Erin: Kesha?

Kesha: Yes, I actually do the same, and I also like to use a study Bible, more so to get the historical context of the Scriptures—background, setting, theme. Then I dive in, just like Joy. So it’s very important to get the context first.

Erin: Yes. A great study Bible will put all that information right up front for you. I’m a writer. I’m creative, so sometimes trying to trace historical lines and figure that stuff out is hard for me. So I’m so grateful to study Bible creators, who put it right there for me.

And so, somebody did the thinking for me here in 1 Samuel 25. I thought we’d just do an overview; there’s an overview in this study. Let’s look at that really quickly on page 9 (my study is all torn up, because I’ve loved it so well). 

Let’s look at who the author is. The Bible does not say who wrote 1 Samuel, but many scholars think that the prophet Samuel, Nathan, (and God) provided much of the material. We always have to list God as an Author. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction” (see 2 Tim. 3:16). 

The book covers about one-hundred-ten years and it takes place in the land of Israel. So let’s put our minds there, what we’re talking about. Let me just read us the first verse, and then we’re going to stop there. 

1 Samuel 25:1: “Now Samuel died.” That’s the first sentence. How’s that for an opener?

Joy: Wow, what an opener!

Erin: “And all Israel assembled and mourned for him, and they buried him at his home in Ramah.” Now this is a Bible study about Abigail, so we might be tempted to say, “Well, that’s a little detail 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?

Joy: Well, he was dedicated, right? He was set apart, even as a little boy. I love that. As Hannah prayed and hoped and believed and trusted that God was going to give her this child. So he was set apart. 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 him.

Kesha: And that’s prior to him even being born, right?

Joy: Yes! 

Kesha: And through Hannah’s prayer, that was her promise to God. “If I conceive, 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 knowing that about him, that He fulfilled that promise. 

Erin: So Samuel’s momma was Hannah, and Hannah is the woman we see in Scripture who is praying so hard, so dramatically, with so much emotion that the priest thinks she’s drunk! He comes up to her and tries to calm her down. That’s Samuel’s momma, and Samuel is the baby that she was praying to God so fervently, so boldly for!

There’s a little nugget in there that doesn’t pertain to our look at Abigail, but I just love it. It talks about how Hannah would visit Samuel every year and bring him a tiny coat—a little tunic! [The other ladies make motherly exclamations.] I know! Every mother understands 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 tabernacle, and he first starts to hear the voice of the Lord as a little boy. He is laying down in the tabernacle and he hears something. He runs to Eli and he goes, “What was that!?” 

And Eli says, like everybody, “Go back to bed, son!”

And then that keeps happening. It’s the voice of the Lord. Joy, would you read us 1 Samuel 3:19?

Joy: I will. “And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.”

Erin: What do you think that means, “let none of his words fall to the ground?” 

Joy: I wonder if it was like His promise. God promised, so nothing was for naught. He was faithful to see it through! And how beautiful that is for Hannah that, “God made a promise to me and He fulfilled it; He kept His promise!” 

Erin: Yes, 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 and Nabal.

God’s hand rested on Samuel from before conception until, here, we see him die. Samuel had a reputation of faith, 1 Samuel 3:20 tells us. In 1 Samuel 25, he died, and the nation is in mourning. We need that backdrop because we’re going to see David here in a minute, and we need to know that David was grieving.

Who do you think Samuel was to David? He’s the prophet of Israel, but how would you describe, maybe, his impact on David’s life?

Joy: Like a mentor, a spiritual leader, and just almost like a covering, an authority figure, like someone to emulate, someone to respect and honor.

Erin: Yep. He has served as a buffer between David and Saul. We’re going to 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 as king. Remember that story?

He goes to David’s house and tried to go through all the brothers, and finally he says, “You got anybody else?” 

His dad says, “Well, yes, there’s David. He’s out there with the sheep.”

And Samuel we see as a man of conviction. He says, “Go get him . . . and I’m not sitting down until he gets here!” 

And the Lord says to Samuel, “Arise, he’s the one!” 

And so it’s Samuel that puts purpose on David’s life, anoints him, gives him a calling. He’s a mentor, he’s a pastor, he’s a leader . . . and he has died.

I wonder if either of you two ladies have experienced something like that: a person of influence in your life—a spiritual influence in your life—who has died? And what has been the heart impact? Kesha?

Kesha: I haven’t had that, not yet.

Erin: You haven’t? Well, blessings for you! Joy, can you speak to that?

Joy: Yes. I think, just in the big-view picture, I remember when Elisabeth Elliot died. I never knew her, I never met her, but she made such a mark on my life. Just her teachings, her heart, her truth—that she had no problem being bold about speaking.

When Billy Graham died, I felt that loss. When I was in middle school, I used to send away for his free books and just loved them. But, personally, I had a great aunt who loved the Lord and who had such a life of tragedy. Her husband, her son, both committed suicide.

Kesha and Erin:  Wow.

Joy: And she had a third loss: her son died during college. He was only there like a month, and he was killed. 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.

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 and such incredible sorrow that she dealt with every single day! But when she died, when she passed away . . .

She loved music and she taught piano. So her grandkids sang all these great little songs like “Jesus Loves Me” and all this. But it was remarkable. Everybody there talking after the service, they were saying essentially the same thing. The essence of what they said was that she was the most faithful woman they had ever known!

Kesha: Now, that’s a legacy!

Erin: Absolutely!

Joy: It is a legacy! And so, the woman never traveled probably ten miles from her home, but the impact she had on the community is profound! I have her picture—black-and-white. She’s out there collecting eggs. It’s up there on my fridge. This is a reminder of what a godly, faithful woman looks like, no matter the circumstance!

Erin: I love that! 

Kesha: Yeah! 

Erin: I think when those people leave our lives, for whatever reason, there’s a vacuum. There’s a little bit of a loss of equilibrium. And that’s where David is: his mentor, his pastor, his spiritual guide, the man who has put a calling on his life, has died. And there are some other circumstances going on.

I just want us to keep that in mind, because we’re going to talk about dealing with difficult people and we’re going to reflect on if we’re difficult people. David faces difficult circumstances. And sometimes that turns us into 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 and about the people we’re not necessarily going to focus on this study. 2 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.

Kesha: Right.

Erin: Now, every time you open your Bible, it’s profitable! But I think there are 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 any time you read your Bible. We assume something is literal unless we have a reason to believe it is 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, Nabal existed. 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! Do you ladies face the temptation to look at Scripture looking for yourself, and immediately want to jump to application?

Joy: Absolutely! “How does this apply—right now—to me?”

Erin: Yes, me too! “What does the Lord want me to do right now?” 

Kesha: Right now!

Erin: And right application only flows out of right understanding, and so while we’re going to be talking about people in this podcast, we want to take a God-centered approach. We’re looking for God. The purpose of Scripture is to reveal the character of God, and so we’re looking for God in this story. Are there any other principles you like to keep in mind as you’re studying the Scripture? Joy?

Joy: It is God-breathed and the Holy Spirit is my resident Teacher. Even if I’m struggling with the passage, or “How does this not just apply to me?”—yes, guilty!—but just, “Help this make sense to me and really flesh it out.” I know that the Holy Spirit, the Lord, desires for me to understand it.

Kesha: Yes, that’s a great point. 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? I mean, He Himself said, “You’re searching the Scriptures, not realizing they’re pointing to Me. It’s about Me!” (see John 5:39)

So I just think that trying to remember that we’re trying to have a relationship with God. We’re not just collecting facts. You know, know Scripture so that we can debate with others. It’s really about trying to understand who God is and build on that relationship. 

Erin: Yes. Right, that’s good. 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 the head! That’s not the point! The point is to find God in it. 

We’ll talk in the future about trusting God to deal with those difficult people. He may use the study to reveal that we are the difficult person. So I want us to meet the people we’ll 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 Saul’s disobedience. And Saul’s jealousy has grown! He’s already tried to kill David a couple of times.

When we find David here in 1 Samuel 25, David is on the run from the anger of Saul. 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 going to learn to “love to hate,” Nabal. And I just have to say, we’re not going to like him!

Joy: No, we’re not!

Erin: We’re looking for redemption in everybody. Nabal is made in the image of God, but we’re not going to like Nabal. He is easy to not like! Who’s got verses 2 through 3? Can you read it for us?

Kesha: I will. 

Now therewas a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel; and the man was very rich, and he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. And it came about while he was shearing his sheep in 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 dealings, and he was a Calebite) (vv. 2–4 NASB).

Erin: Okay, so we get a lot of information right there. I mean, if this was Nabal’s Twitter bio, we would have what we need to know about the man. So what do we see; what do we know about Nabal just from these two verses?

Kesha: He’s harsh. He’s evil. 

Joy: He’s also very wealthy.

Erin: He’s rich! He has a lot of sheep; he has a lot of goats. Joy and I both have livestock. How many goats do you have? 

Joy: Well, not a thousand! (laughter)

Erin: Me neither! I don’t have goats anymore, because goats don’t like to stay in fences! Do you have that problem, Joy? So his are probably in open pasture somewhere.

Kesha: So goats are always trouble, huh? 

Erin: They are ornery, ornery, ornery! I do have sheep; we probably have twenty sheep. But this is a man who is rich; he’s wealthy. It reminds me of that verse where the Lord sends rain upon the righteous and the unrighteous. (see Matt. 5:45 NIV) 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 Nabal is wealthy. How does your passage describe him, Kesha?

Kesha: “Harsh and evil in his dealings.” (NASB)

Erin: Mine says, “harsh and badly behaved” (ESV) Joy, what does yours say?

Joy: “Badly behaved.”

Erin: I ask that because when we’re not in here—in a room with women who believe like we believe 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 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 Calebite. And this is where you’d have to do some digging again. I would say as you’re reading the Bible on your own, if there are those questions, if you don’t know what that is, pay attention. It’s not a race. Take some time and dig.

So Caleb was one of the two spies who trusted the Lord to go into the Promised Land. You probably sang that children’s song, “Ten were bad and two were good.” So 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. 

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 we see in Caleb a faithful man who trusted God. Numbers 13:6 tells us he’s from the tribe of Judah. Who else is of the tribe of Judah?

Kesha: Jesus.

Erin: Jesus, that’s right. So they’re of the same tribe. So, Nabal, though he’s evil in his dealings, though he’s harsh, though he’s badly behaved, his lineage is people of God. I don’t know what happened there with him.

Kesha: He lost his way! 

Erin: But then we get to Abigail, and as much as Nabal will annoy us, Abigail will intrigue us. So let’s read about Abigail in verse 3. 

Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful [what a combination!], but the man was harsh and badly behaved; he was a Calebite (ESV).

Discerning and beautiful—what a great description! 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!

Kesha: I would be quite okay with that!

Erin: What words would you love for people to describe you?

Kesha: I actually like the word “discerning.” Wisdom. She’s full of wisdom. That’s what I want to be. So I love wisdom, discerning. And . . . who doesn’t want to be beautiful? 

Erin: We all want that!

Kesha: So, yeah, discerning, full of wisdom, faithful, trusting. 

Erin: Yes, good. Joy, what do you want people to say about you?

Joy: Just ditto what she said. Full of grace, full of mercy, full of love. You want people when they walk away from you to feel like they’ve not just been with you so much as they’ve had an encounter with the Lord!

Erin: 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 that knows her Bible. I love that.

Joy: I always said that I want to have that, “I finished my race!” I just want to finish faithfully and strong.

Kesha: Yes! And strong . . . I want to finish well.

Erin: And if people could say I make the best chocolate chip cookie in the world . . . (laughter) But what 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 a difficult neighbor . . . a difficult parent . . . yes! And yet, we see in her a woman who is discerning and beautiful.

And then there’s David. We know some things about David’s character already. 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 has fought lions. He obeys the Lord. 

And these are the people that we’re going to spend some time with, in trying to learn how to deal with difficult people. And what they teach is that we don’t have to let harsh and badly behaved people turn us into harsh and badly behaved people. They respond differently to this man that Scripture’s clear, isn’t very much fun to be around.

And the circle goes back to David. This is a man who’s grieving. This is a man who’s on the run. 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.

And so, there are some questions in the study that I thought we’d 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. 

There are some tough questions here. We’re not going to walk through all of them in the podcast, but I thought we’d tackle a couple of them. I’ll tell you what I would do if I was doing this Bible study for myself, I would consider these questions rhetorical. “I don’t have to actually answer those questions because they’re there all on a list. Those are sweet. I hope someone else wrestles with those!” (laughter)

But what we want women to do is actually talk about these with each other. Ask these questions of the Lord and invite Him to do some work. So, here it is: “Am I sometimes impossible to deal with?” I’ll let you all go first! (laughter)

Joy: I would hope not, but I’m sure there are moments when I am impossible to deal with. At least, my husband probably would say that.

Erin: Yes, and that’s of whom we should ask this question.

Kesha: Yes, really we should ask our husbands these questions. But, yes, I’m sure there are times when I’m impossible to deal with.

Joy: Absolutely! Especially with my husband. And that may look at temperament, just attitude, just being short with him, my expectations. That can go a mile down the road, just with my husband alone.

Erin: Yes, my husband is actually in the other room listening to us record this podcast. I don’t want to answer this question; he has a front-row seat to my sin, unfortunately . . . but 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, because I can get so out-of-sorts and little things can become big things. Everything becomes a mountain, when it’s all just molehills. Or when I’m overextended. I know myself. I know that I can basically handle two evenings a week where we’re running. But we have four little boys, so that’s a hard boundary to keep.

If we’re running three or four nights a week, I get impossible to deal with!

Kesha: Yes, stress does that for me, too.

Erin: I get so stressed! And I don’t usually recognize it until I’m ugly. 

Kesha: Yes, that’s what I was going to say.

Erin: I don’t like that! 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 the secondary question: “Are people not honest with me for fear that I’ll 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 not a social media kind of question. You don’t want to throw that out there for the masses. But what kind of people would you encourage women to take that question to and ask for an honest answer?

Joy: I think, there again, family. 

Kesha: Yes. I was going to say church family, actually. Like, for myself, I’m very, very close with the ladies of my church, so I think this is a question that I can ask them: “Have you ever been afraid to be honest with me, in fear that I’ll take it the wrong way?”

Erin: Yeah, that’s great. And then we can’t blow up when they give us an honest answer! 

Kesha: We can’t go, like, “Really!?”

Erin: So maybe it’s one good friend, or maybe it’s your women’s Bible study group, or maybe it’s your husband.

Kesha: Husbands, for sure!

Erin: But I think as part of walking through this study, a bold and scary step would be to say: “Do you see this in me? Are there times when you’re afraid to be honest with me because I’m impossible to deal with?”

Joy: Oh, their children. You know, in their teenage years it’s so important—imperative—that they have that freedom to come to you rather than just hide and not speak . . . and for us not to display our anger when they bring something up.

Erin: That’s so good. Our oldest is eleven. We’re starting to get into the, “We care about our hair very much,” all of a sudden. So I think it’s good to ask those diagnostic questions as you parent. 

And here we go, another question from this list: Do I answer roughly rather than graciously? 

We’re going to see in Abigail an opportunity to respond gruffly—or roughly—but instead, she gives grace. Where 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?

Joy: Well, there again, family. We could apply that all the time to our own household. But I think when we’re out and about, if we’re in a hurry—we’re at the gas station, we’re at the store, we’re at something—and the person behind the counter. We need to have grace, or grace for someone in line, or just if someone cuts us off on the road. I think just those brief encounters can really get to us!

Erin: I feel so convicted. I had the world’s slowest Walmart checker last week! Thirty-five minutes I was waiting! And I was like, “Uuuuh! Uhhh!” I didn’t say anything, but she got the vibe!

Joy: We can be so impatient out and about in our communities. We can be just like annoyed.

Kesha: This is actually my weakness here, because I am so direct that it sometimes does not come across graciously. My husband and my mom and probably friends can attest to that. I’m truthful, and everyone appreciates being truthful, but sometimes it just comes off a little too hard!

Erin: I have the same struggle. Are you a first-born?

Kesha: Yes.

Erin: Me, too. And I say I’m on Type A. I’m type AA. Like I just: task . . . task . . . task . . . task . . . task.

Kesha: Right!

Erin: So, to me, I’m saying, “This is the deal. Let’s get it done!” But I’ve watched people melt under it, and the Lord has to help me with being gracious.

Kesha: Yes, it’s so hard! 

Erin: So I hope that as you’re walking through this study, you won’t consider those questions rhetorical, but you’ll actually walk through them. Let’s wrap this up by just telling the women who are on the other side what we hope for them. We want them to walk through this study, and we want the Lord to do something in their lives. 

So if you could have just one hope, Kesha, for the women who walk through this study with us, what would it be?

Kesha: My hope would be that if we are convicted, it’s a good thing to embrace that, because ultimately, it brings out the Christlikeness in us. We’re trying to actually become more like Christ, so don’t reject or suppress that conviction or dismiss it. Actually 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.

Erin: Amen, I love that. Joy, what’s your hope?

Joy: I think, obviously if they’re doing the study of Abigail, they probably have a difficult person in their life, or a circumstance or situation. So I would want to say to her that God is in it, and He has 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 were saying, Erin.

But God is in this. He has not abandoned you, and He is still working in your life!

Erin: I love that! I hope there are thousands of women who walk through this study and this podcast. I always like to think, 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!

All Scripture is taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted.

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