Jezebel and Athaliah
Mother/Daughter Bible Study—Part Eight
Between the Two of You:
Adult/Adult Study (If you are an altogether adult mother-daughter team)
Discuss or email back and forth your thoughts on the following:
- What does the word “insatiable” mean? Can one have an insatiable (in the literal sense of the word) desire for food? What about for money or material things? Have you ever known anyone who was not a Christian who was wealthy and felt that he/she had all that he/she wanted? Ahab was probably the wealthiest man in the kingdom, but, rather than focusing, gratefully, on what he had, he focused on what he did not have. Do we do that?…about our houses?…about our jobs?…about our abilities?… about our congregations? Do we look with disdain at our blessings and covet “Naboth’s Vineyard”
- As disgusting as it may be, use your concordance and make a list of the occasions on which dogs licked blood in Ahab’s family and subjects. Discuss situations in the lives of people you know in which they find themselves in desperate conditions because of sin. What are things we can do, in faith, to keep the “dogs” away from our children? Specifically, what are some things we can do to make sure our children are in the house of the Lord rather than the grove of idolatry?
- Read II Chronicles 34. What book was found that prompted Josiah to humble submission and kept him from the evil that was to come on the land (verses 27-28). Discuss ways we can keep the Book today from becoming “lost in the temple”. How do we “write it on the tables of our hearts” rather than leaving it, unopened on the coffee table?
- Jezebel was a liar. How do we know this? She thought, for a long time, that she was an invincible liar. Do you know people today who think they can keep on lying through life and never be caught? What effect does this have on marriage? Can an honest person have an on-going extra-marital affair?Explain.
- Athaliah killed her own grandchildren in order to retain power. Was her propensity to become a murderess genetically transferred or was it environmentally produced? Defend your judgment. Would our courts today show compassion to Athaliah, since she was raised by a murderess? Was Athaliah simply a victim of her upbringing? What are problems that may arise in our society when our courts focus on the victimization of criminals, themselves (i.e their family histories, their socio-economic levels, their races or their past abuses), rather than the crime committed and the true victim(s) of the crime?
Adult/Teen Study (If you are a mom and teen daughter team)
- Discuss the term “queen bee”. What is a queen bee in the natural world? What is a “queen bee” in the middle school world? Has your daughter seen the behavior of a queen bee at school or in her circle of activities? Have her make a list of behaviors exhibited by “queen bees” in her world.
- Now have her read Matthew 7:12 and I Corinthians 10:23, 24. Go through the above list of behaviors with her again and see if any of them would be described by the spirit of these verses.
- Now rehearse the account of Naboth’s vineyard again. How was Jezebel both the queen and the “queen bee”?
- Who later died in Naboth’s vineyard? What was Jehu’s rhetorical question on that day in the vineyard? Why can there never truly be peace when we are involved in idolatry? Rehearse the definition of idolatry and think of idols that God’s people sometimes “worship” today.
- What two groups of people were killed in Athaliah’s search for power? How did Jezebel’s murder of Naboth, early on, affect the way Athaliah viewed the value of life. Take a minute to discuss abortion at this point. Find a you-tube or facebook video of a baby moving in the womb. (At the writing of this lesson, there is a good one available on my Facebook page. cc) Discuss the conscience of a nation that has legalized the taking of life in the womb, in many cases even until late in the pregnancy.
Adult/Child Study (if you are a mom and child team)
(Be sure you tell your daughter, in age-appropriate terms, the material from the last post about Athaliah.)
- Do you know anyone who always wants to be the boss? Discuss. How do you feel when someone else always wants to tell you what to do? Who wanted to be in charge about Naboth’s vineyard? What terrible thing did she do in order to have her way? Talk about Matthew 7: 12 here and how Naboth must have felt when Jezebel attacked him and had lies told in order to have him killed. Did Jezebel even consider Naboth’s feelings or his family at all? Decide that, today, your daughter will watch for a time when she can let someone else do something or have something even if she would really like to be the one to do it or have it. Decide a practical way that your daughter can practice the golden rule today.
- Discuss who it is that will be praised in Proverbs 31:30. Discuss the difference between the way we might fear a poisonous snake and the we fear God. Make sure you daughter understands that fearing the Lord results in obeying Him, while fearing the snake results in running away from him. In which way should your daughter fear you, as her mother? Should she run away from you or should she always run to you in obedience? Discuss.
