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Bible lessons from Queen of Sheba, the Widow and the Shunammite Woman

There are Bible lessons from nameless women in the Bible. Here are such lessons from three of these women - Queen of Sheba, the Widow, and the Shunammite Woman.

Queen of Sheba

The Queen of Sheba had heard about Solomon and the God he served so she visited him to see if it was really true (1 Kings 10:1 NIV). She brought worldly gifts for Solomon (1 Kings 10:2 NIV) and asked him about what was on her mind. Solomon answered all her questions and in the end she was overwhelmed by his answers, his wisdom and his wealth (1 Kings 10:3-8 NIV). She then gave the glory to God:

Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness (1 Kings 10:9 NIV).

When she returned to Sheba, the unfortunate woman did not take the God of Israel with her, but instead only worldly things (1 Kings 10:13 NIV). The Queen of Sheba typifies lost souls who come to church today and leave without Jesus. Since I was born again in 2002, I have seen many, many people walk into church and leave the same way they came in, not saved.

They experience the presence of God in worship service, they hear the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they are invited to the altar after service to repent of their sins, to be baptized in Jesus' name and to have hands laid on them to receive the Holy Ghost. But all in vain! They do not submit to God's will for them in their lives. They walk out through the same doors they entered in the same condition they came in - lost without having Jesus living on the inside of them.

If you are reading this and have not been born again and have a desire in your heart to fully turn to Jesus Christ, find an Apostolic Pentecostal church near you and submit to the One and Only God, the God that is One, Jesus Christ.

The Widow

The widow of 2 Kings 4:1-7 ESV had recently lost her husband and his creditors were about to take her sons in payment for the debt. She takes her troubles to the man of God, Elisha and he asks her "What shall I do for you...what have you in the house?" The only thing she has in the house is a jar of oil and it's value won't pay off the debt. Elijah tells her and her sons to go and find empty vessels and fill them with from the jar of oil she had in her house. She does exactly what Elijah instructs and every empty vessel that they brought to the house was miraculously filled.

This is a message for the saints of Jesus' church. Lost souls are empty vessels that need to be filled with the Holy Ghost to pay off the debt of sin so that they will be free of the bondsman, the devil, that ensnares them. They need to hear preaching and through repentance (2 Timothy 2:24-25 ESV) they can be freed from the snare of the devil:

And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will (2 Timothy 2:26 ESV).

Repentance, truly turning to Jesus Christ, allows empty vessels to be filled with the Holy Ghost:

Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:38)

How many empty vessels can be fed? The promise is for all:

For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call (Acts 2:39).

Our job, as God's saints, is to bring lost souls to the house of God so that each and ever one of them can be filled to the brim with the Holy Ghost.

The Shunammite Woman

"It is well" was the response the Shunammite women gave Gehazi, Elisha's servant, when Gehazi ran to meet her when she was on her way to the man of God in her life, Elisha, to tell him that her son was dead (2 Kings 4:26). We have to ask ourselves "what kind of faith in God would it take to be in that situation for us to respond in that manner?"

The Apostle Peter's second Epistle was addressed "to them that have obtained like precious faith" (2 Peter 1:1). Peter was referring to the like precious faith that he, and approximately 3000 other souls, acquired the day of Pentecost when they were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and received the gift of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues (Acts 2:1-47), becoming born again Christians.

This Bible lesson about the Shunammite women continues here. It explores the story of her faith so that she could respond "it is well" when her son was dead. We will see that she displayed the characteristics of being the Christian that Peter wrote about in 1 Peter 1:5-7.