Obadiah Served Ahab
Synopsis 1Kings 18:1-11 6/4/2019
Obadiah was a faithful man of God who lived in Israel. And, he served King Ahab as his estate manager.
Because of the drought, Ahab’s personal estate was in danger. So, he sent Obadiah out to look for water in order to save their livestock.
Meanwhile, God spoke to Elijah the prophet. After hiding from King Ahab for the three years of the famine, God told him to visit him. So, Elijah returned to Israel. As he journeyed, he encountered Obadiah. And he told Obadiah to convey a message to Ahab. Elijah wanted to meet with the king.
But Obadiah was fearful. Ahab had been looking for Elijah for years without success. He was afraid that if something went wrong with the meeting that he would be blamed. So, he did not want to serve as Elijah’s intermediary or messenger.
Obadiah Served Ahab
Obadiah was a faithful man. In other words, he followed the God of Israel and rejected the worship of Ahab’s false god.
Yet, Obadiah worked for Ahab. In fact, he ran the king’s personal estate. So, in effect, this made him the chief employee of the most evil king in all of Israel’s history.
Choosing Who To Serve
The modern temptation is to think, “I could never have served the most evil person in all the world.” And personally, I might even wonder at how any faithful man could willingly choose to serve a person who had committed so many evil acts. What’s more, I may even find myself wondering: How faithful could Obadiah have really been?
Of course, this is the modern tendency of the Synthetic Community. We point fingers and call for boycotts. We collectivize the righteous and do our best to reject and isolate the evil-doers.
But, there are two intrinsic problems with the modern, synthetic approach. First, when I focus my attention on someone else’s moral failure for the purpose of isolating them, I am condemning them. The unvarying result of this kind of condemnation is a fracture in community.
The second intrinsic problem is that we live in a culture where most people do not even agree on the difference between good and evil. And, on top of this, I have my own moral failures. And typically I don’t want other people to condemn me for them.
We all do evil things.
So, what – does the Authentic Community weakly accept evil?
No, Christian. The call is to love. And this is a personal call. In other words, it is to me. I am called to do all things as unto the Lord.
And this means that my mandate is to simply meet the people I meet in the moment I meet them, and love them there.
“Whatever you do, do from the heart, as for the Lord and not for others, knowing that you will receive from the Lord the due payment of the inheritance; be slaves of the Lord Christ.” Col 3:23
