I’ve been reflecting on some of the quiet characters in the Bible, people who played key roles that saved lives and made a significant difference in people’s lives, but whom we don’t usually hear much about. I’ve been reading up about three in particular, and would like to delve into the significance of their actions and share some of what I’ve learnt. Incidentally, two out of the three are not even named at all, but are simply referred to by their job role.

The first is Nabal’s servant, and his story is found in 1 Samuel 25. This passage tells us about David’s encounter with a rich man called Nabal, who is recorded as being “crude and mean in all his dealings.”(verse 3). Nabal has a wife, Abigail, who is described as sensible, discerning (verse 3). I do feel sorry for her being married to a man like that, as it can’t have been easy. That said, if you know the story, you will know that David had helped look after Nabal’s shepherds and sheep, and had come during the sheepshearing time, which was a time of celebration, to ask for some provisions (At this time David was not yet king, but anybody with discernment would have known it was only a matter of time). Nabal basically insulted David, and when David heard Nabal’s reply, David pretty much went, ‘right, that’s it, let’s finish him and his clan off.’ Or more accurately, ““Get your swords!” was David’s reply as he strapped on his own.” (Verse 13).

Enter Nabal’s servant: “Meanwhile, one of Nabal’s servants went to Abigail and told her, “David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he screamed insults at them. These men have been very good to us, and we never suffered any harm from them. Nothing was stolen from us the whole time they were with us.In fact, day and night they were like a wall of protection to us and the sheep. You need to know this and figure out what to do, for there is going to be trouble for our master and his whole family. He’s so ill-tempered that no one can even talk to him!”” (Verses 14-17, NLT).

Based on this report from Nabal’s servant, Abigail went on to take action that saved the lives of everyone living in Nabal’s household. Verse 34 says “For I swear by the Lord, the God of Israel, who has kept me from hurting you, that if you had not hurried out to meet me, not one of Nabal’s men would still be alive tomorrow morning.” Given that Nabal was a rich man, there would have been a lot of workers there, not to mention his own family, so the death toll would not have been insignificant.

There is a lot of praise for Abigail, and it is rightly deserved. However, without this report from the servant, they would have all been sitting ducks living out their last day on earth. As such, you could argue that this servant’s courage, to speak up regarding his master’s unfairness and unreasonableness, and the potential consequences, and to do so to the wise and discerning person in the household, was the catalyst that helped save their lives. Imagine the number of lives that would have been lost, not to mention the impact all that bloodshed would have had on David, if this servant had kept quiet.

There is so much to learn here, but I’ll try to keep it short. What do you do when someone is being unfair? What do you do when you hear people speak ill of someone who has been kind to you? Do you defend them or keep quiet? I would hazard a guess that there were many other servants there who knew what had transpired, and had also experienced David’s kindness and protection, why didn’t anyone else speak up?

Furthermore, are you discerning enough to know who to bring a problem to? Nabal’s servant was wise enough to know it would have been hopeless trying to reason with his master, but knew that his mistress, Abigail, would be a better bet.

This servant may not have been named, but their brave and wise intervention is recorded for posterity. Will you be that person who recognises unfairness and unreasonableness and takes action in a wise and discerning way? Who speaks up about the kindness of others when the situation calls for it? May God give us the grace to apply our hearts unto wisdom, and to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves when we are in a position to do so (Psalm 90:12, Proverbs 31:8).

The second person is Naaman’s servant girl, and her story is found in 2 Kings 5. This young girl was living in Israel when Aramean raiders invaded her land and took her captive. As fate would have it, she ended up in the household of Naaman, the commander if the Aramean army, as a servant to his wife. Commander Naaman had a problem though, sadly he suffered from leprosy. There seemed to be no solution for him, until this girl spoke up. “One day the girl said to her mistress, “I wish my master would go to see the prophet in Samaria. He would heal him of his leprosy.” (Verse 3). Wow.

This is a girl who was captured, against her will, probably dragged away from her family and community and all she knew as safe, to end up living in the house of the person in charge of her misfortune. But, instead of plotting revenge, she seeks to be a blessing to him. She knows a way he can be healed of his leprosy. Does she hide it because of what he has done to her and to others like her? Surely no one would blame her if she did. But no, her compassion spurs her to give him a solution to his problem.

You probably know the rest of the story, but if not, Naaman goes to see Elisha, Elisha tells him what to do, and after a bit of huffing and puffing, he eventually obeys. The result, Naaman is completely cleansed from his leprosy. “And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel… for thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord.” (Verses 15a and 17b).

And by that act of not keeping quiet about the solution to his problem, even though he was technically an enemy, she was the catalyst in Naaman not only receiving his healing, but also turning from the worship of false gods to the One True God. She is not named, but again, her actions are recorded for all time, and thanks to this, we can still celebrate and learn from her today (As an aside, I hope Naaman was at least grateful to her for the tip, as he wasn’t even aware of Elisha beforehand).

What is your reaction to someone you dislike suffering? Schadenfreude or compassion? Would you ‘unplug your enemy’s life support to charge your phone’, as they say, or would you act with Godly compassion (and maybe even get a generator to keep the life support going)? Are we the kind of persons who will point people to opportunities that can be blessings to them, or do we simply keep those opportunities to ourselves, especially when it concerns people we may not like? Do we seek the good of the household, workplace, street, church, city, country we are in, even when, like the servant girl, there may indeed be justification for us not to do so?

1 Peter 3:9 (NLT) exhorts us thus “Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and He will grant you His blessing.” Jeremiah 29:7 (BSB) says “Seek the prosperity of the city to which I have sent you as exiles. Pray to the LORD on its behalf, for if it prospers, you too will prosper.” 1 Timothy 2:1 (BSB) says “First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be offered for everyone – for kings and all those in authority—so that we may lead tranquil and quiet lives in all godliness and dignity.” May God give us the grace to do so, even when it is hard, especially when it is hard.

The third person, who is incidentally the only named person in my list of three, is Ebed-Melech. And if you knew who he was before reading this, well done, your Bible knowledge is impressive. If you didn’t, you can look his story up in Jeremiah 38.

For context, Jeremiah, one of the major Old Testament prophets, has the very challenging and unenviable task of prophesying what is essentially an unfavourable prophecy to the Israelites, to warn them of the consequences of their actions… of breaking the covenant with God, thanks to their disobedience, injustice and idolatry. King Zedekiah, who is King of Judah at the time (the last one before Jesus), does not exactly listen to Jeremiah (I should add though that there is a very interesting dynamic here, as he sometimes actively seeks Jeremiah out to hear what he has to say… but does not really seem to lend much credence to his words).

Anyway, some officials go to King Zedekiah, accuse Jeremiah of being a traitor and say he needs to die because he is undermining the morale of the few soldiers left (verse 4).
“King Zedekiah agreed. “All right,” he said. “Do as you like. I can’t stop you.”” (verse 5, NLT). And so these officials take Jeremiah from his cell, lower him by ropes into an empty cistern in the prison yard. “There was no water in the cistern, but there was a thick layer of mud at the bottom, and Jeremiah sank down into it.” (Verse 6). In essence, they are sentencing Jeremiah to a slow, painful death, of drowning in mud, with no food or water.

Enter Ebed-Melech, an Ethiopian and important court official. He hears that Jeremiah is in the cistern and takes action straight away:
“At that time the king was holding court at the Benjamin Gate, so Ebed-melech rushed from the palace to speak with him. “My lord the king,” he said, “these men have done a very evil thing in putting Jeremiah the prophet into the cistern. He will soon die of hunger, for almost all the bread in the city is gone.”So the king told Ebed-melech, “Take thirty of my men with you, and pull Jeremiah out of the cistern before he dies.”

So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went to a room in the palace beneath the treasury, where he found some old rags and discarded clothing. He carried these to the cistern and lowered them to Jeremiah on a rope. Ebed-melech called down to Jeremiah, “Put these rags under your armpits to protect you from the ropes.” Then when Jeremiah was ready, they pulled him out. So Jeremiah was returned to the courtyard of the guard—the palace prison—where he remained.” (Verses 7 – 13).

Ebed-Melech, who was actually a foreigner, intervened when he saw a grave injustice taking place. Ebed-Melech did not just stop at informing the king, he personally took action, astute, practical action, to get Jeremiah out of the cistern, thus helping to save Jeremiah’s life and enabling him to continue his work for God. (As an aside, you might understand why I made the point about an interesting dynamic there, as King Zedekiah seemed to be an indecisive, wishy-washy king. One moment someone says, ‘let’s kill Jeremiah’, and he says ‘Sure go ahead’. The next moment someone says ‘let’s rescue Jeremiah’, and he says, ‘Sure go ahead’). A classic example of a person who does not stand for anything and consequently falls for everything. The good news is, Ebed-Melech was able to use that to Jeremiah’s advantage.

Others must have seen what was done to Jeremiah, and the injustice of it all, but who else spoke up? Are you more like Ebed-Melech or the others around? Are you someone who speaks against injustice, with godly wisdom and discernment, or who turns a blind eye? Proverbs 31:8-9 (NLT) exhorts us to “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice.”

Praise God for people like Ebed-Melech, who, even though a foreigner and probably entitled to say, ‘not my circus, not my monkeys’, took it upon himself to ensure justice was done. Even though most of us may not know who Ebed-Melech is today, God saw what he did and gave him this message, “Say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: I will do to this city everything I have threatened. I will send disaster, not prosperity. You will see its destruction, but I will rescue you from those you fear so much. Because you trusted me, I will give you your life as a reward. I will rescue you and keep you safe. I, the Lord, have spoken!’” (Jeremiah 39:16-18, NLT). Thank God that God is a God who notices, even when others don’t.

As I write this, I think about people who have such quiet roles in life, people who are not really recognised or acknowledged, but who don’t let that stop them from doing good. If you are one of such people, God bless you for your service to God and to people, for doing what is right, even when no one else seems to see it. It takes a true heart for God to do what pleases Him without seeking external validation.

However, because we are all human, there might be times when feelings of being unseen, unappreciated, sidelined may creep in, and that can be challenging to deal with. Especially when people appear ungrateful. When that happens, it helps me to remember that if I am acting in obedience to God, and in service to Him, then it makes logical sense for me to expect any reward or acknowledgement from God and not humans, and to trust that God sees and knows.

Matthew 6:3-4 exhorts us to actually live this way, doing charitable deeds in a way that is so secret, only our Heavenly Father sees them, fully resting in the knowledge that our Father, who sees everything “will Himself reward you openly” (NKJV). In acting this way, we are obeying God, and there is a promise attached to such obedience. Even when the reward may seem far, the comfort that God sees and knows, and that I can trust Him to be fair and just, is tremendous during such times. Incidentally, in the case of Ebed-Melech, Jeremiah probably did not even have the power to reward Ebed-Melech with what he actually needed, but God did.

Sometimes though, it is a weariness that sets in, either because we feel overwhelmed by the amount of injustice that takes place, or the lack of fellow hands and feet to fight for justice, or how little a difference we may feel we are making, or we may be truly heartbroken at the extent of man’s inhumanity to man. Galatians 6:9 (WNT) encourages us to “not abate our courage in doing what is right; for in due time we shall reap a reward, if we do not faint.” What can help is to keep remembering to take our struggles, weariness, fatigue, weakness, pain, anxieties, burdens, heartbreak, grief about it all to God, over and over (Psalm 55:22, 1 Peter 5:7, Philippians 4:6-7).

Imagine these feelings are a hot pan, and think of what can happen if we try to hold them for long. We are going to get burnt. As such, we need to drop these ‘hot pans’ straightaway at the feet of the Master. It will always be too much and too hot to handle if we don’t keep doing this continuously. As Lysa Terkeurst notes, “Trying to carry the weight of holding everything and everybody together is a role God never called us to play.” Our role is to do what He tells us to, and trust Him for the outcome. He can handle all the ‘pans’ that discourage us, no matter how hot they are.

I pray that as we reflect on this, we will have the compassion to help even those that have not acted favourably towards us, the courage to act when we see unfairness and injustice taking place, and the wisdom and discernment to know how and when to act. When weariness and feelings of being unseen and unacknowledged begin to creep in, may we remember that we serve a God who, in addition to being a just and faithful God, is the God who sees, the God who knows, the God who rewards, and His grace is ever available to us and ever sufficient for us. Amen and Amen.

Image Source Here.