Abigail - Week 6: Death Brings Life

Erin Davis: Welcome back to the Women of the Bible podcast. I’m Erin Davis, and you’re listening to the season that’s all about Abigail. I’m a little sad for this episode, because it is the conclusion of our walk through the study, Abigail: Living with the Difficult People in Your Life.

I feel just like I do on the last night of Bible study, just like, “Oh, I’ve loved this!”

Meg Honnold: “My girls!” 

Erin: “Can’t we just always have Bible study every day of our lives?” So, I want to reintroduce you to some friends of mine. You’ve been hearing them on the podcast. They’re wise; they’re winsome; they’re wonderful . . . and all the other “w” descriptive words I can think of! 

I’ve so loved getting to know you better and opening God’s Word with you! Joy and Meg are joining me on this episode. Joy, I’m curious: what has the Lord done in your own heart through this study?

Joy McClain: I love the study of Abigail! I lived Abigail in some respects. I didn’t have a David, but I did know the contentious husband! But I love how it’s calling me, reminding me of grace upon grace upon grace and to trust God and know I’m loved by Him.

He’s got this! I can trust His working and His justification, all that works out. I can just give those people that need grace, just give ’em grace! I can trust that He’ll deal with it.

Erin: Well, Joy, you are an Abigail. You’re discerning and beautiful 

Joy: Oh, yes. I wish this had been the end earlier!

Erin: I so enjoy being with you! And, Meg, what has the Lord done in your own heart through this study?

Meg: I am not God, and justice is not mine to control. I think I identified most with David. My response to difficult people is to strap on my sword and to take revenge for myself. I’ve been so convicted by Abigail’s example of seeing her so highly, highly revere God’s authority and His sovereignty over the situation, even risking her own life to stand up for God’s authority in the situation.

Erin: Yes, I love that. I think there’s a defensiveness in me that I’ve fought most of my life—the right word for it is pride. When people criticize me (whether big or small) or question my decisions, or it could be something more severe, like an assault on my character . . . My flesh is always the first to the scene of everything, unfortunately.

There’s a defensiveness in me that, after this study, I hate even more than I did going into it. I don’t like that about me, and Abigail shows me an alternative. She’s not defensive; she’s gracious. The name of the Lord is on her lips. She respects people. She speaks to others very highly, whether they’re in a high position or a low position.

So I’m walking away from this study wanting the Lord to do an even more dramatic work in my life of just removing defensiveness from me. And defensiveness is ultimately a faith issue, right? If I think I have to defend myself, I’m not trusting Him to defend me. So He’s also used this to expose pockets where my faith is weak, and that is never fun . . . but I’m grateful for it.

So it’s been a great study. I hope wherever you’re gathered with women walking through this study of Abigail, that you’ll take some time after this episode and have that conversation: What has the Lord done in your heart? Because that’s what the Word of God does. We don’t open it as a historical book, although this really happened in history. 

It’s not a fable with just a good lesson at the end. Abigail was real; Nabal was real; David was real. They really lived. We don’t just open our Bibles to try and earn some check marks or gold stars in heaven. That’s not now that works. We open our Bibles to know God, and when we know God, it exposes things in ourselves.

I hope as you finish this episode, you feel a little sad, too, because you’ve loved the journey, but that you’ll talk about what the Lord has done. I want to show us the happy ending—the seemingly happy ending—of this story, while we wrap. We don’t want to leave any cliff-hangers here.

It feels a little bit like a fairy tale!

Let me read us 1 Samuel 25:39–44. That will take us through the end of this chapter and through all that we know about Abigail’s story: 

When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, "Blessed be the Lord who has avenged the insult I received at the hand of Nabal, and has kept back his servant from wrongdoing. The Lord has returned the evil of Nabal on his own head.” 

Then David sent and spoke to Abigail, to take her as his wife. When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, "David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife." And she rose and bowed with her face to the ground and said, "Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” [We see that humility in her again.] 

And Abigail hurried and rose and mounted a donkey, and her five young women attended her. She followed the messengers of David and became his wife. David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel [man, those names are tough in the Old Testament!], and both of them became his wives. Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim.

Ooh, I butchered all those names! But they’re there, and we get the gist of what happened. What parts of the ending of this chapter sound like a fairy-tale ending to you?

Joy: Well, obviously, when David takes her as his wife. I mean, it sounds like a fairy-tale ending. 

Meg: She almost rides off on a white horse, until they say it’s a donkey! And that’s where it starts to break down. 

Erin: And her bridesmaids are with her. I think it was probably a very Pinterest-y moment! 

Meg: Yes, absolutely!

Joy: She bowed down, and it’s all wonderful. He picks her up and throws her on his back . . .

Meg: You’ve got some little Mason jars with some baby’s breath in there. 

Erin: Yes, there’s burlap involved, I’m sure of it! The sun is setting, and it’s beautiful. It speaks, I think, to all we’ve seen of Abigail’s character. As soon as David hears that Nabal is dead, he’s like, “I’m gonna get her! I’m going to go and have Abigail as my own! I love her!” He thinks about that moment when she brought him all the bread.

Meg: “She will be mine.”

Erin: The way to a man’s heart I think, right there.

Meg: That’s right! He just needed some more of those raisin cakes.

Erin: He’s like, “And she made those raisin cakes.” So that all sounds so romantic, and it sounds like, “Oh, she’s been married to this harsh, evil, wicked man, and now she’s married to King David, and we love King David!”

Meg: “Happily ever after!”

Erin: There it’s all true, but even here at the end of the story, what signs do we see that all might not be perfect?

Joy: He’s got other wives! He’s going to have other wives, so there’s the competition. She’ll not get the sole attention, and plus, we have to remember that she has gone through a very long season married to this man. That makes a mark on a person.

Meg: And he has just died. Even though it was a terrible marriage, think of what she’s going through at the end of all this. It’s not just a neat and tidy, “She’s raising up and running to King David.”

Joy: Not at all. She’s leaving behind a home.

Meg: A whole life!

Joy: She’s going to go with King David, which is basically an on-the-run life.

Erin: Yes, she’s going to live in the wilderness with David, and do we remember how many men he’s with? 

Meg: It’s like three-hundred men. 

Erin: There are six-hundred men!

Joy: He’s in the wilderness with a bunch of men who like to strap on swords.

Erin: She’s living in the wilderness with six-hundred men! I can relate; I live with five men (laughter), and I don’t want to camp with them for years! And that’s exactly the situation that Abigail’s going into. They’re going to wander in the wilderness for years. Ultimately, David is going to be crowned king, and they are going to live in the palace. But if we know David’s story, what’s around the corner that we know, that Abigail can’t see?

Joy: Bathsheba. A great fall.

Erin: Bathsheba! Her husband is going to have an affair with Bathsheba, and it’s going to cause a nuclear bomb that is going to have fallout in his life and in his kingdom, and in her kingdom now, forever! 

So this is a man that we might want to romanticize this moment, but he’s ultimately going to have an affair. And any woman who’s been on this side of the affair knows how painful that is. So she’s really fleeing from one difficult marriage to another. I was calling out to the Lord once about how hard marriage was—and I’m married to an absolute hero of a man!—but marriage is hard. And then I was reading in Scripture about how I am the Lord’s bride.

He reminded me that He knows a thing or two about hard marriage! Because I’m wayward; I’m difficult; I’m hard to live with! So she moves from one difficult marriage to another. I’m reminded that on our best day we’re broken people married to broken people. I mean, that is still her story.

When Abigail was married to Nabal, she was a broken woman married to a broken man, and when Abigail is married to David she’s a broken woman married to a broken man. So I think it’s important for us to not overly romanticize—or sanitize—the story here.

Meg: Because then it’s, “If we do the right thing, if we behave like Abigail, then we’ll get the perfect marriage! We’ll get whatever it might mean.”

Erin: Right.

Joy: There’s a danger for women to do that. Honestly, there’s the danger in some severe situations, or just more selfish situations, of saying, “God, can you just kill him!” or “Just have him go away, whatever the means!” I mean, that happens

Meg: “Remove me from this situation!”

Joy: “Remove me; release me so that I can get a new man who will be my knight in shining armor!” So there’s a danger, really, in romanticizing anything in this world because we’re humans. We fall, and we are flawed, and we are sinful.

Erin: And Joy, you are an Abigail, in ways. Your husband was a Nabal in many ways. And yet the Lord did a wonderful work in his heart! But he’s still a sinner.

Joy: Marriage is still hard. 

Meg: It’s not perfect now?

Joy: It’s not perfect; it will never be perfect. I say this over and over again: We just learn to extend grace. We learn to live in the shadow of the cross so that grace is given; there is mercy. There are days I say, “Oh, you’re a Nabal.”

Erin: You say it out loud?

Joy: Yes, sometimes, to be honest. But I’m a Nabal! We are all so filled with pride and self and what we want and my agenda and, “You hurt me!” and “It’s got to be all about me!” So, yes, it never goes away.

Erin: So, Joy, how long have you been married?

Joy: Thirty-four years. It’s been a few seasons.

Erin: Thirty-four years! I’ve been married nineteen years. Meg, how many years for you? 

Meg: Almost two glorious newlywed years! (laughter)

Joy: Enjoy those wonderful years!

Meg: My husband is never a Nabal, nor am I! 

Erin: She says sarcastically . . .

Joy: Ri-i-i-ght! We’ll talk to you in ten years!

Erin: Yeah, right. So whether you’ve been married almost two [happy sigh] years or nineteen years . . .

Meg: I didn’t say it like that!

Erin: You said it so dreamy.

Meg: It is dreamy!

Erin: . . . or thirty-four years, there is no removal of the brokenness this side of heaven. So let’s not sanitize the story in a way that isn’t true. Meg, would you take us to 1 Peter 3:3–6, and instead of just praying for the fairy-tale ending, I think the Lord gives us a different picture of how we can respond.

Meg: 1 Peter 3:3–6 (NIV): 

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.”

Erin: I love that! And this arrow is pointed to Abigail as much as Sarah, who is mentioned here. It’s talking about these holy women of the past, and Scripture does tell us that Abigail was beautiful. We don’t know what she looked like, but we know that beyond whatever external beauty she had, there’s an internal fountain of grace in her that comes from the Lord.

So whether it’s in your marriage or your friendships or at work or in your church . . . I think a lot of women listening to this are struggling with the difficult people in their own church on the pew behind them on Sunday morning! We are given a picture how to respond. It’s with this internal beauty that we see in Abigail.

And while her circumstances don’t go forward perfectly, she becomes this example for us to follow. It’s important for us to remember that difficult people are broken people. I’m sure you’ve heard: “Hurt people, hurt people.” That’s true. And broken people break people. 

I mean, broken people are always going to be broken people, and we’re all desperately broken. So, a hope I have for women as they’re concluding this study is that instead of focusing on the difficult person in their life, their focus is now on their sufficiency. 

They might have gone into this, thinking, “I’ve got to get out of this situation! Now, I hope they’re thinking, Whether the Nabal in my life dies or not, whether the marriage changes or not, whether the situation changes or not, Christ is sufficient. And I think that’s a right and good focus.

Joy: How do we know that part of Abigail’s beauty did not come from all those years of living with Nabal learning to surrender, and learning to trust God and growing in that and exercising that muscle that we talked about. She was trusting God and knowing that He is present in that and the courage it takes to do that.

Meg: I see that in you. For me as a newlywed, there’s so much beauty looking at thirty-some years of love and grace-upon-grace. There’s this beauty—inwardly and outwardly. It’s an example for me to cling to of what it looks like.

Joy: That’s just exactly why, generationally, we should be Titus 2 women. 

Meg: Titus 2 . . . right . . . mentoring, discipling. But that’s another study, right?

Erin: That’s a whole ’nother study! That’s a who-o-o-le ’nother conversation . . . but a good one to be having!

Meg: I’ll bring the brownies! 

Erin: Good! As we’re wrapping this up and thinking about this study, I always want to find the gospel. What opened Scriptures for me? What really made my passion for God’s Word grow from a little spark to a bonfire is when I realized all of the Old Testament is an arrow pointing forward to Jesus. And all the New Testament is an arrow pointing backward to the gospels. 

And the gospels are this core, this epicenter. So it’s this challenge when I read the Word of God: Where is the gospel? We don’t have to look hard in this story; it’s not a square peg in a round hole. We don’t have to look hard anywhere in Scripture, because the whole story of Scripture is this redemptive narrative!

Joy: It points back. 

Erin: Let’s look at a couple of verses that came to mind as I was looking for the gospel here. Meg, can you read us Colossians 1:21?

Meg: Yes, ma’am. “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior” (NIV).

Erin: Joy, read us Romans 8:7.

Joy: Absolutely. “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.”

Erin: Oh, I love that. So the words used here to describe us—apart from Christ—are “enemies” and “hostile.” And these are the words used to describe Nabal. We are going to look at this story, and we are going to want to be the Abigail, but in the light of the gospel, we’re the Nabal!

We were hostile towards the things of God, and the Romans passage tells us we couldn’t submit to the things of God because we didn’t have the mind of Christ. We were running in rebellion against His law, against His ways. And we all have different “befores.” Some of us have a moment where we surrendered our lives to Christ; for some of us it’s a process.

But we all have a version of ourselves that before Christ, looks very different than our life after Christ, because we are a new creation. I think it’s always profitable for us to remember that we were once apart from Christ, just running in glad rebellion. 

I’m just curious: What did your “before” look like? What did your heart, your life, look like before you were surrendered to Christ? Joy?

Joy: I think, full of fear and self-sufficiency and my own agenda and my own expectations. Obviously, not surrendering but just that fear, that grappling, paralyzing fear that, “I have to take care of myself. I have to do this myself. There is no one on the perimeter and the exterior scene who are actively involved or redeeming anything.”

And just the love, the sheer love. That blows my mind more than anything—God’s love for me! I live with me. I know me! And He loves us. He loves us! When we knew Him not, He loved us!

Erin: We didn’t rehearse that, but you just described Nabal. I mean, I think Nabel is a man motivated by fear. He’s certainly a man motivated by scarcity. He’s got to take care of himself. 

Meg: Self-preservation, absolutely!

Erin: There’s stinginess in him and everything you just described about your “before Jesus” describes just the core heart of Nabal. How would you describe your “before” Meg?

Meg: I would describe myself as a deceiver. I grew up in a Christian home. I knew the answers. I knew what it looked like, on the outside, to behave like a young Christian woman. I had all the resources that I needed and the instruction, but I hit a point where I knew how to lie. I knew how to deceive; I knew how to put on the face. 

I was extremely clever at what I could hide and how I could hold people at bay so that they didn’t get under that surface. It took the Lord breaking me and rebuilding me and leading me to His truth and allowing me to walk as a child of His truth. He took me from my craftiness. We all have a fear of being found out, that shame that we can carry.

Erin: Yes. I marvel at what the Lord has done in me! I’m not who I was. We’ve all mentioned fear. Fear was my absolute taskmaster. It drove every decision that I made. And just pride to the “nth” degree. I mean, in my flesh I’m an expert “navel-gazer”—always looking at myself. 

That looks like insecurity sometimes; it looks like moxie sometimes; it can look like different things, but I’m still me. (Meg, you mentioned that you know you; I know me.) I look forward to the day that I am fully transformed and can shed “me” and be like Christ!

Meg: Yes, I hear you!

Erin: He’s done such a radical work in my life. I can look back and say I was in rebellion against God! I did not want to follow His laws; they seemed foolish and silly to me. I did not want to live the way that the Lord called me to live; I thought I knew better. 

In the beginning of this study, Nabal asks this question when David asks for a snack—essentially to be cared for. Nabal said, “Who is David?” And that was the question of my heart: “Who’s God? Like, who does He think He is? I don’t know why He has any authority in my life!”

Meg: “Doesn’t He see that I’ve got this?”

Erin: “I am Erin; I can handle this!” as I flushed every area of my life straight down the toilet! And so when the Lord gives us gospel eyes to see this story, we have to face the fact that we’re Nabals—hostile towards the things of God, running in glad rebellion, asking that question: “Who is God!? He doesn’t have any authority in my life!” And death was coming for us!

The men of David’s army draw their swords; they are coming for Nabal. Scripture tells us that’s the penalty we deserve, right? The penalty we deserve is death. We were goners, and yet Christ intervened graciously! 

Erin: Joy, you keep bringing us to the cross as we’ve been talking on the podcast and at lunch and as we go. I love that about you!

Joy: I need God! 

Erin: The gospel is always on your lips. We all need the cross!

Joy: Yes, redemption. I speak of redemption all the time.

Meg: Maybe that should be my epitaph: redemption. “She’s finally redeemed!”

Erin: “She always spoke of redemption.” What a beautiful thing!

Joy: I am so needy of that! We all are. But I loved when you read that Scripture. I was thinking about that Scripture of Sarah. We want to take out just the submission piece, which is such an important component. But it says she did not give way to . . . what? Fear! 

Fear drives women. Our behavior all the time is slamming cabinets, the silent treatment, or whatever, because of fear. You talked about all the backlash on posting on social media, because of fear. We’re afraid we don’t measure up, and we got to be “all that” and get one up.

Meg: Get the upper hand.

Joy: Yes, but I love that Scripture where it says, “She does not give way to fear,” because what I see in Abigail is a brave, courageous woman, not in her own strength, but in the strength of the Lord. 

Having lived with a difficult man, I know what that’s like. You must draw strength from somewhere. It’s either going to be from your own self—you’re going to pull up your bootstraps and you’re like, “I can do this, I can fight this! I deserve whatever . . .” Or you can cower in the corner .

Or you can trust in the strength of the Lord. And what does He say? “Perfect love casts out [all] fear” (see 1 John 4:180. So if we understand God’s love—which is a redeeming love, which is the wooing, redeeming love of the cross . . . He loved us so much that He died for us! He gave His Son for us!

Meg: He was that go-between for us.

Joy: He was that. He closed that gap for us. If we get how much He loves us, then we cannot live in the fear, not live under the shame, because He’s covered it. Then we really are Abigails, when no matter what the circumstance, we understand (as much as our finite minds can) redemption.

I do not have to understand why He loves me, because I do not know why He loves me. But He does, because His Word tells me that and His Spirit tells me that He loves me.

Erin: The human redemption in the story is incomplete. Yes, her husband dies (which we want to celebrate, but certainly was emotionally complicated). Yes, she marries the king, but if that was the complete story of redemption, it would be a partial story of redemption.

Joy: It would be a human story of redemption There’s always going to be brokenness and an undoneness to the human story because we are flawed.

Erin: Sure, yes. But it’s a shadow. It’s a picture of a greater gospel story, praise God! It reminds us of the gospel narrative. It reminds us of the gospel. I need to be reminded of the gospel all the time! I always think of the apostle Paul who started to say, “I’m amazed how often you Galatians defer to other gospels” and then he corrects himself and says, “Not that there are other gospels!” (see Gal. 1:6–7). We tend to either add to the gospel or subtract from the gospel or forget the gospel.

I need reminded: “No, it’s creation, fall, redemption—creation, fall, redemption. My brokenness, Christ’s sacrifice, my wholeness. I mean, it’s the gospel, the gospel, the gospel. I’ve heard it said that the ground is even at the foot of the cross—meaning we all need Jesus.

And I would say it this way: At the foot of the cross, we’re all Nabal. You’re Nabal; you’re Nabal; I’m Nabal. Because at the foot of the cross we realize our desperate brokenness, our desperate neediness, and that we’re all hostile towards God, apart from Jesus’s wooing.

Our hope is always, always, always—whether you’re studying Abigail or Esther or Lamentations—our hope is always, always, always gospel hope . . . not just a checklist of do’s and don’ts.

Scripture gives us a really good question to ask ourselves when we study the Bible: “How then should we live?” So then, in light of all that we’ve learned in this story, in light of the fact that our hope is ultimately gospel hope, in light of everything we see in the character of Abigail, how then shall we live? Practically, how will it change the way that you operate moving forward? Joy?

Joy: I think, there again, just planting yourself in the Word of God so that you know the character of God, so you can live in response to the character of God and who you are. Your identity is in Him. It’s not as oh so many things we want to call ourselves these days.

I’m a daughter of the King of kings, and if I live in that, if I understand what that really means, then I can get through my days giving grace upon grace, even going through trials, going through sorrows. I can trust that “God’s got this!”

Erin: What about you, Meg? How would you respond to, “How then should we live?”

Meg: I think going through this study I’ve noticed the shift in my spirit—this freedom and the ability to pray for those enemies, or for those Nabals. I am looking at myself the way that Christ sees me, in turning my perspective towards His authority, and really, truly handing that over.

I’m saying, “It’s not mine to control. He is in charge. He is God. He is a good Judge. He is a good Avenger. He will avenge us.” It’s coming, and that’s our hope for every day.

Erin: Yes, love that. I’m going to read Colossians 3:12–14. I think it answers the “how then should we live” question in ways that are really, really practical and helpful. 

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Joy: I love it!

All Scripture is taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted.