We have all met folks like Nabal, haven’t we? You know the type: bragging about their clothes or cars, or about how much money they make, or about how influential their friends are. Just so, in verse 11, Nabal boasts about “my bread, my water, my meat, my shearers.” And he doesn’t want to share any of his things with anyone else, and certainly not with David’s soldiers.

But as is so often the case today, those who have a lot also tend to owe much of their success to others. For example, my job calls for a lot of reading and typing, but I didn’t teach myself how to do either of those things. My mom taught me and my brother how to read before either of us went to school. And I took a year of typing classes my sophomore year in high school. And I’m sure we all have similar stories of the great contributions that our parents, teachers, pastors, coaches or Scoutmasters made to each of our lives.

Just so, Nabal’s workers confirmed the fact that David’s soldiers had been protecting them, along with all his livestock, for many days. And yet, Nabal was too stingy to let David’s men join in the feast he had provided for his own employees. What a selfish jerk. No wonder everyone called him Nabal, because in Hebrew, his name means “fool.”

But was David really any more virtuous than Nabal? For how should we respond to people who are proud and selfish? Should we envy what they have? Should we even go so far as to try to take it from them, as David prepared to do in verse 13? I mean, we all know it’s wrong to be a stingy miser, but is it really any better to be a thief?

No, the bottom line, no matter what our politicians may tell us, is that envy is not somehow superior to greed. Instead, the challenge for all of us, no matter how rich or poor, is to be satisfied with whatever the Lord has provided for us. As Paul told Timothy, “Godliness actually is a means of great gain, when accompanied by contentment” (I Timothy 6:6). So, no matter how the proud and the selfish around us may behave, let those who follow Christ seek to be merciful and generous with one another. For we can trust that our gracious and righteous Lord will not only give His people everything that we need, but will also bring justice to the wicked – without our having to take matters into our own hands.

I Samuel 25:1-17 (NASB)

Then Samuel died; and all Israel gathered together and mourned for him, and buried him at his house in Ramah. And David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran.
2 Now there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel; and the man was very rich, and he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. And it came about while he was shearing his sheep in Carmel
3 (now the man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. And the woman was intelligent and beautiful in appearance, but the man was harsh and evil in his dealings, and he was a Calebite),
4 that David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep.
5 So David sent ten young men, and David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, visit Nabal and greet him in my name;
6 and thus you shall say, ‘Have a long life, peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have.
7 ‘And now I have heard that you have shearers; now your shepherds have been with us and we have not insulted them, nor have they missed anything all the days they were in Carmel.
8 ‘Ask your young men and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we have come on a festive day. Please give whatever you find at hand to your servants and to your son David.'”
9 When David’s young men came, they spoke to Nabal according to all these words in David’s name; then they waited.
10 But Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, “Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are each breaking away from his master.
11 “Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men whose origin I do not know?”
12 So David’s young men retraced their way and went back; and they came and told him according to all these words.
13 And David said to his men, “Each of you gird on his sword.” So each man girded on his sword. And David also girded on his sword, and about four hundred men went up behind David while two hundred stayed with the baggage.
14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saying, “Behold, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, and he scorned them.
15 “Yet the men were very good to us, and we were not insulted, nor did we miss anything as long as we went about with them, while we were in the fields.
16 “They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the time we were with them tending the sheep.
17 “Now therefore, know and consider what you should do, for evil is plotted against our master and against all his household; and he is such a worthless man that no one can speak to him.”