Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him. And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took as his wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him.”
NL Daily Devotion for Saturday, November 4, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
This kind of made me chuckle. To paraphrase: Ahab was a complete jerk, and if that wasn’t enough he married an absolutely horrid woman! As I touched on yesterday, women in scripture often come to bear more responsibility for the poor choices of men than they probably should. Here we are introduced to the single most notorious woman in the Bible. Even if you’ve never read a word of it, culturally you probably know that “Jezebel” is not a compliment. Jezebel’s big crime was that she worshipped Baal and got others to do likewise. Newsflash! Ahab and all the kings before him were already up to their eyeballs in the worship of other gods, including the Canaanite gods, e.g. Baal. Clearly this woman must have made a serious impression on the people of the day for her to have been recorded in this fashion!
This isn’t to say that once we’ve already gone down a not-so-great path we can’t be led further along by someone of less-than-stellar influence. We can’t blame them for our bad behavior—it’s our choice to follow after all—but we can be aware of their effects on us and take whatever action is needed to extricate ourselves from our entanglement. It doesn’t even need to be so obvious or sinister as a Jezebel leading us to egregious sin. I spent decades in a relationship that I didn’t even realize was dysfunctional. We truly brought out the worst behavior in each other. My behavior wasn’t his fault, but I had to come to the realization that continually subjecting myself to the way he triggered me was hindering me from my efforts to become healthy. Ultimately, I had to leave in order to finally heal.
Again, it can be super easy to blame the Jezebels in our lives for our issues. But real progress toward healing can’t be made until we’re honest with ourselves about our own choice.
When have I allowed someone to influence my behavior in negative ways? Am I still doing this in some area of my life?
