One of the best friendships that we read about in the Bible is that between David and Jonathan. The Scriptures reveal when they became best friends: Now when he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day and would not let him go home to his father’s house anymore. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan took off the robe that was on him and gave it to David, with his armor, even to his sword and his bow and his belt (1 Samuel 18:1-4 NKJV). I believe the common characteristic that bonded these two men together was their trust in God.
Notice two passages, similar in context, in which before Jonathan and David ever met, reveal their common faith in God: Then Jonathan said to the young man who bore his armor, “Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised; it may be that the LORD will work for us. For nothing restrains the LORD from saving by many or by few” (1 Sam. 14:6). Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. Then all this assembly shall know that the LORD does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the LORD’s, and He will give you into our hands” (1 Sam. 17:45-47).
This is the common bond that characterizes our love for one another as Christians. Peter wrote his second epistle to Christians who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:1). It is our love for Christ and his word that unites us in his body. With that being the case, how can we increase our love for one another, as Paul instructed the Thessalonians to do (1 Thessalonians 4:9,10)? It stands to reason that we should increase our faith in God.
We can do this by studying our Bibles in our free time, in Bible class, and in worship during the sermon. So, then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). Why did Jonathan believe God could help him and his armor bearer defeat twenty men in hand-to-hand combat? Perhaps he was very knowledgeable of how God used Gideon and only three hundred men to defeat thousands of Midianites. Or why was David so confident that God would give him victory over the giant, Goliath? Perhaps he was very knowledgeable of how God helped a spry 85-year-old Caleb drive out the giants in Hebron.
If we truly believe what the angel Gabriel said, For with God nothing will be impossible (Luke 1:37), and we are around others who also hold fast not only to those words, but the entirety of God's word, how can we not love such people and want to be knit together with them? But, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love (Ephesians 4:15,16).
Brotherly, Jamie
