Notes (Sept 15) Ahab & Jezebel: Abuse of Authority
Ahab and Jezebel: Abuse of Authority
or
The Power of Influence AND The Influence of Power
Sabbath School Lesson
September 15, 2007
Teacher: Larry R Evans
Questions for Reflection
1. Power and authority should be exercised in family relationships. True or False
2. The impact of selfishness is not limited to the one who is self-centered. True or False
3. Influence is power. True or False
4. Compromise produces a false picture of reality. True or False
5. Following the principles of God’s law can be destructive. True or False
6. Abuse ends with the life of the abuser. True or False
Introduction
Former UN Security Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold once said, “You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn’t reserve a plot for weeds.” (Quoted in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey, p.305.) While we were created in the image of God, sin has planted seeds of selfishness within each of us. Unfortunately those seeds are not restricted to the soil in which they were planted, but like vines of noxious weeds their tentacles of influence poison the vulnerable ones who dare to toy with their own carnal natures.
Today’s study is about Ahab, King of Israel, and his foreign bride, Jezebel, who was the daughter of the king of the Sidonians. While the alliance with Phoenicia did bring about military and trade advantages it also had a serious downside! Jezebel brought with her the desire and the expectation to worship her own religion. To please her Ahab, the king of God’s peculiar people, built a temple to Baal and with great zeal Jezebel promoted the worship of her gods from Tyre and Sidon among those living in Israel.
Of Ahab’s undisciplined characteristics and the influence of Jezebel, Ellen White wrote:
“Ahab was weak in moral power. His union by marriage with an idolatrous woman of decided character and positive temperament resulted disastrously both to himself and to the nation. Unprincipled, and with no high standard of rightdoing, his character was easily molded by the determined spirit of Jezebel. . . . Under the blighting influence of Ahab’s rule, Israel wandered far from the living God and corrupted their ways before Him. . . . Through the influence of Jezebel and her impious priests, the people were taught that the idol gods that had been set up were deities, ruling by their mystic power the elements of earth, fire, and water.” (PK 115)
Several valid titles could be used for this lesson including “Domineering Love” which is used by Gordon Christo in the companion book, For Better or for Worse. I have chosen to broaden the scope to the power of “influence” which certainly includes the aspect of domination. The timeless truths found in this study must not be relegated to the past. Study carefully not only the influence of Ahab and Jezebel but God’s intervention through the role Elijah played found in I Kings 16:28-22:23.
Today’s Study Outline
1. Power and authority should be exercised in family relationships. True
The May 14, 2007 issue of Time Magazine featured “The Most Influential People in The World.” The managing editor, Richard Stengel, wrote, “Influence is less about the hard power of force than the soft power of ideas and example.” (p.7)
Do you agree? What does that mean to you? When it comes to the home what kind of “power” and what kind of “authority” has the most influence? Should power and authority be used in the family? What influence do words, family priorities, routines and examples within and without the family have? There are certainly many examples of the abuse of both power and authority but does that negate their use in family relationships? How should they be used and not be used?
When Ahab married Jezebel, granted it was an arranged marriage, was his “spiritual” authority compromised in his home and elsewhere? Why?
This week’s study guide selects 2 Cor 6:14 as the key memory text which reads as follows:
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people." (New International Version)
The Message puts it this way:
2Co 6:14 Don't become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That's not partnership; that's war. Is light best friends with dark?
2Co 6:15 Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands?
2Co 6:16 Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God's holy Temple? But that is exactly what we are, each of us a temple in whom God lives. God himself put it this way: "I'll live in them, move into them; I'll be their God and they'll be my people.
2Co 6:17 So leave the corruption and compromise; leave it for good," says God. "Don't link up with those who will pollute you. I want you all for myself.
In contrast to the devastating influence of Ahab and Jezebel note the influence of a positive Christian home:
“The warmth of a genial welcome, a place at your fireside, a seat at your home table, the privilege of sharing the blessing of the hour of prayer, would to many of these be like a glimpse of heaven.
Our sympathies are to overflow the boundaries of self and the enclosure of family walls. There are precious opportunities for those who will make their homes a blessing to others. Social influence is a wonderful power. We can use it if we will as a means of helping those about us.” {MH 354}
Stephen Covey emphasizes an important beginning point when he says, “The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. . . . So the place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our Circle of Influence, our own character.” (Covey, p.187) And this Ahab refused to do.
2. The impact of selfishness is not limited to the one who is self-centered. True
Of Ahab Scripture records in 1 Kings 16:30-32,
“30 Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him. 31 He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” (Covey p. 96) The self-centeredness of Ahab was his greatest enemy. It opened the door for compromise with principle which ultimately led his nation on a course of self-destruction.
Speaking of Ahab’s son, Ahaziah, Scripture records, “52 He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, because he walked in the ways of his father and mother and in the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin. 53 He served and worshiped Baal and provoked the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger, just as his father had done. 1 Kings 22:52-53 Ahab’s sinful influence spread to his own family and far beyond. Self-centeredness is not self-contained.
3. Influence is power. True
“What Is Influence? I define influence as the power to affect change, or to achieve a result, without the use of force or formal authority. Influence is power — the power to motivate, to sell, to be more effective, more potent, and more satisfied. But influence isn’t power alone. It isn’t just communication. And it certainly isn’t manipulation.
Influence is a gentle, subtle skill. It is a much more refined approach to affecting others than the use of authority or coercion.” -- INFLUENCE - PORTABLE POWER FOR THE 21st CENTURY, By Elaina Zuker
According to this description do you believe Ahab had an influencing power over Jezebel? Why or why not? Did she have an influence over him? Is it possible to lose one’s influence? How? Can power enhance influence? Can it diminish one’s influence? How?
4. Following the principles of God’s law can be destructive. True
The story of Naboth makes it clear that one can be destroyed for following and remaining loyal to God. See 1 Ki 21:1-16. Naboth, loyal to God, fell victim to the self-centeredness of Ahab and the manipulative powers of Jezebel.
In brief: Naboth had a vineyard just outside the palace of Ahab and the king decided it should be his. He offered to trade for it or buy it outright. Naboth valued the property because it had belonged to his fathers. Furthermore, according to Levitical code, no land could be transferred permanently by sale or exchange and must “keep to himself to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.” (Num.36:7)
This put Ahab in a depressive tail-spin. Seeing her husband overwhelmed with disappointment Jezebel took things into her own hands. Using the signature of Ahab she arranged for a feast in which Naboth was given a seat of prominence. She then arranged for two “scoundrels” to be seated near him who later lied and accused him of cursing God and the king. For this he was stoned to death making it possible for Ahab to possess the vineyard.
Of this incident Ellen White wrote, “Naturally of a covetous disposition, Ahab, strengthened and sustained in wrongdoing by Jezebel, had followed the dictates of his evil heart until he was fully controlled by the spirit of selfishness. He could brook no refusal of his wishes; the things he desired he felt should by right be his.” (PK 204)
The influential power of Ahab’s moral weakness when combined with Jezebel’s manipulative power was a destructive power for those who stood in their way.
5. Compromise produces a false picture of reality. True
The pathway of Ahab’s compromising approach to life blinded his own perception of reality. He was left with no “north star”—no moral compass and no real understanding who he really was.
Prompted by wide-spread drought Ahab went searching for Elijah whom he believed was responsible. When he did find him, his first recorded words to Elijah were, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?” The trouble that came upon Israel did not orginate with Elijah but with Ahab and those before him who had led Israel to abandon the true God. Elijah explains it well,
1 Kings 18:18-21
18 "I have not made trouble for Israel," Elijah replied. "But you and your father's family have. You have abandoned the LORD's commands and have followed the Baals. 19 Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table."
20 So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. 21 Elijah went before the people and said, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him." (from New International Version)
Stephen Covey contributes an important principle relevant at this point in our study, “People can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.
With a [personal] mission statement, we can flow with changes. We don’t need prejudgments or prejudices. We don’t need to figure out everything else in life, to stereotype and categorize everything and everybody in order to accommodate reality. (Covey, p.108) This changeless core Ahab did not have. His selfishness, his prejudice towards Elijah drastically effected his own perception of reality. That false perception led to his own demise and failed to preserve the unique identity God had given to Israel. Do we have the same dangers today?
6. Abuse ends with the life of the abuser. False
Often the abuse of power and authority do not cease with the death of the abuser. Of Ahab’s son, Ahaziah, it is said, “He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, because he walked in the ways of his father and mother and in the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin.” (1 Kings 22:52)
Is there any hope for future generations. Are we to be held captive by history and heredity? Can the cycle be broken? It has been said that there are only two lasting bequests we can give our children—one is roots, the other wings. The “wings” is in reference to help our children and others to rise above the negative imprinting so prevalent in the world around us. Unless we teach future generations how to think differently they will be entombed in false perceptions of reality. That is the challenge of each Sabbath School class and every sermon—to rise above and beyond the confinement of our self-centered world. The answer lies outside of us—not within us and that is message and mission of the Church. The incarnation power of the Gospel is indeed the best news possible for this generation and the ones to come!
“The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.” – Ezra Taft Benson.
The power of influence almost always precedes the influence of power. How is it with your influence? Would it be safe to give you more power?
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