Reading… and Thinking

Ahab called Obadiah who was over the household. (Now Obadiah feared the LORD greatly; for when Jezebel destroyed the prophets of the LORD, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave, and provided them with bread and water.) Then Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go through the land to all the springs of water and to all the valleys; perhaps we will find grass and keep the horses and mules alive, and not have to kill some of the cattle.” So they divided the land between them to survey it; Ahab went one way by himself and Obadiah went another way by himself.

— 1 Kings 18:3-6 (NASB)

Obadiah was clearly a trusted subordinate of Ahab’s. He was “over the household”, which makes it sound like he had charge of the palace. But since Ahab personally took half of this important job, he could only have entrusted the other half to his second-in-command. Obadiah was the prime minister.

How could a faithful man, a believer in Yahweh, bring himself to work for a man like Ahab? Not only did he work for him, he did good work for him, or he never would have risen so high.

We have no way of knowing how it came to be that Obadiah started working for Ahab. At some point, he probably knew enough that he couldn’t leave, at least not alive. We don’t know if Obadiah regretted the position he had or not, but we do know that he put his life on the line to thwart Queen Jezebel’s plan to kill all the prophets (i.e., teachers) of Yahweh.

In the New Testament the apostles Paul and Peter urge slaves to give the best service they were capable of to their masters. And not only to the kind ones—also to the cruel ones. (Ephesians 6:5-8, Colossians 2:22-24, 1 Peter 2:18) Obadiah shows us how this can be done. He did excellent work, the best he was able to do. But he would not sit by while wrong was done. He used his position to do right, to save life, to maintain a remnant of faithful people in Israel.

It is possible to live right, and do right, even when working for people who aren’t righteous. Many of us may not work for employers who are believers. Some employers (more or less) support Christian principles of morality, and that helps. But ultimately it’s up to us. We can never excuse ourselves for doing less than our best, just because the boss is an unbeliever, even if she or he is positively evil. On the other hand, we can never excuse ourselves for failing to do right, just because the boss might punish us.

The lesson we learn from Obadiah is: Do your best, regardless of the circumstances you’re in. But never participate in wrongdoing, and to the extent that you’re able to, head off the wrong that others want to do—no matter what might happen.
 

(P.S. Just to avoid any confusion: this Obadiah isn’t the one that wrote the book.)