The Heart-For-God Series: 1 Samuel 18-20
CLOSER THAN A BROTHER
“A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother,” (Prov. 18:24).
Have you known such a friend? One who sticks closer than a brother?
I met a guy on my first day of college who became something like this for me. I walked into the dorm and found this tall, lanky, country boy dressed in blue rugby pants, matching blue shirt, dark blue socks with blue runners. I just started laughing at him. Here I was, dressed in button-down shirt with a shaker-knit sweater and dress pants, and he was laughing at me. We could not be more different in personality and style. As we mocked each other, a friendship was born.
Over the two years we were together at college, I discovered an intimacy I had never known with another person. I believe that our shared faith in Jesus was central, and we were brought together to learn from each other. In our second year, we were roommates, and we grew even closer. While studying for an OT exam, we laughed endlessly while making fun of the names we memorized. Oddly, we had the top marks on that exam. One night as we pondered our futures, what God had in store for us, we ended up praying for two hours. We laughed, we prayed, we were bound together.
After 33 years, the friendship suddenly ended. It was hard for me – still stings. I have often grieved the heartbreak of it, but never regretted the friendship. I am wary of intimacy now, but I know I have learned the depth of real friendship.
Friendship is a risk. You can get hurt. Nevertheless, you need to jump in and take a chance. Friendship is too important to miss for fear; isolation is a vice. A person is only known through friendship.
As we study the friendship of David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel 18-20, we will discover the depths of friendship. And we will see in their friendship the meaning of intimacy with Jesus, a friend who is closer than a brother.
Two Souls Knit Together
Fresh off his victory over Goliath, David was talking with King Saul, the head of Goliath still hanging from his hand. Something in that moment, we’re not sure what, caught Jonathan’s attention. It may have been David’s faith in God that arrested Jonathan as he heard David defy Goliath in the name of Yahweh (1 Sam. 17: 45-47). We don’t know. But the narrator tells us “The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David…” (18:1b).
That Hebrew word “knit” is a curious word for friendship. It means “to bind, knot, conspire, and league together.” Often it is used for conspirators which is misleading in this instance. Only once is the word translated as “knit” and that’s here. If not for the context, we might think that David and Jonathan were conspiring against Saul. But the context speaks of friendship between David and Jonathan, a deep intimacy that bound the two men together.
I believe what bound them together was a shared love of God. Augustine in the 5th century spoke of the grace of godly friendship where he took the beauty of human friendship and set it in the context of Christian friendship. It was here, he said, that we learn about grace. In his analysis, general human friendships paled in comparison to the friendships rooted in the grace of Christ.
It is this grace which knits together the souls of a farmer with a scholar, a plumber with a politician, a nurse with an insurance adjuster. Christ is the common denominator and our love for him and his person tamps down the differences.
Loved as One’s Own Soul
Amid the madness of Saul, his insane jealousy and murderous intentions towards David, this little story of two men’s friendship is inserted. It may seem bizarre and not worth mentioning. Yet it captured my attention.
“…the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul,” (1bc). The Hebrew word for “love” is aheb. It’s a general word for love and it occurs 210 times in the OT. It is used of the love between Abraham and Isaac, God’s love for humans, even for a dish of food – it’s that general. In this narrative, it means friendship love. It’s thrown around a lot. Saul loves David, Saul’s servants love David, Saul’s daughter loves David, the army loves David – you get the idea – it’s pretty broad.
But then in verse 3 we get a new word, ahaba. “Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul,” (3). It’s not new really, but a variation of aheb. What’s different is that it has a stronger emphasis. It is a love that leads to a formal declaration of relationship. Sounds pretty serious.
Anna-Marie Ellithorpe (Vancouver School of Theology), speaks of friendship as the “school of love.” Love, she says, is a core element of friendship; friendship is the outworking of love. It’s where we learn what love is and provides a motivation for loving others. I would add, I am a better spouse because I was trained for love by my friendships.
All forms of love are connected to our love for God. Love and friendship are profoundly related. The way we love each other is only a faint echo of God’s love, but it’s not optional. The Bible teaches us love is commanded: Love for God and love for one another. We are to love as we have been loved; we are to befriend, as we have been befriended. Loving and befriending are a response to God’s grace. It is a natural outflow of a way of life immersed in and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Church is the outworking of friendship in community. We are a community of friends. If we see church any other way, we miss Christ’s design for community. When friendships fail in the world out there, it is here that the vision of friendship ought to be restored. If it’s not, we’ve lost sight of God’s vision for the church.
The Covenant of Friendship
As readers of David’s story, we are privy to the scene where David is anointed as the replacement for King Saul (1 Sam. 16:13). It seems that Jonathan knew this, or was perceptive enough to see that David was going to be the next king. Jonathan could have been threatened by this realization, but he wasn’t. He does something remarkable instead.
“Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt,”(3-4). Jonathan loved David so much that he was willing to give up his rights to the throne. Taking off his outer robe symbolized his abdication from that role as prince. We see authority in the cloak in the OT with Joseph’s coat or when Elijah placed his coat on Elisha. (Here, J is willing to take 2nd place).
In an old Akkadian document, a 13th century king divorced his wife. His son had to choose which parent to live with. If he chose his mother, he had to give up hopes of being king. If he chose his mother, he would indicate this symbolically by leaving his clothes on the throne. This seems to be what Jonathan does in giving David these gifts.
The covenant of friendship in our time, between us, though less formal, is all about putting your friend first, ahead of yourself. We want the best for our friends. We want our friends to know God, so we show them how God loves. The care we show is mutual. We bear each other’s burdens.
Imagine a herd of deer fording a stream. One will go first to break the force of the water for the sake of the others, but when he becomes tired, he will go to the rear of the herd so he can benefit from the protection of others.
True friendship lives by this covenant. It is enjoyed in good times; forged in hard times. They are tested and found true and valued. Praying for each other, sacrificing and sympathizing for each other define Christian friendship.
Were they more than friends?
Here’s the tragedy. The LGBTQ agenda has made us paranoid of intimacy. David and Jonathan loved each other intimately, so they must have been “in love.” In responding to this popular perception, I want to clarify aspects of their friendship from an OT perspective and reinforce our need for friendships.
First, the LGBTQ read into the story and find champions for their cause. They say there is no evidence against it. The absence of smoke proves that the fire is very carefully hidden. They claim that later translations glossed over the narrative to hide the evidence. But CS Lewis responded that it’s like arguing if there’s an invisible cat in a chair, the chair would look empty; but the chair does look empty, therefore there’s an invisible cat in it. Duh!
Second, the language of affection may strike us odd. But it was more common in the OT to say that two men could be bound together, that they delight in each other. We read that Jacob’s life was bound up in his son Benjamin (Gen. 44:30-31). That just means Benjamin was dear to him. Have we not had friends who are so dear to us it pains us to be apart?
Third, David and Jonathan kiss each other. What’s that about? 1 Sam. 20:41tells us how the two men set up a signal to indicate if David was in danger. Turns out he was, and this grieved the two men because it meant that David had to flee, and they didn’t know when they would see each other again. They weren’t gay, they were full of sorrow and could express their hearts in no other way than kissing. This was not uncommon in the ANE society. It’s just not American to do so.
Finally, David’s comment when Jonathan was killed has been suspect. He said, “Jonathan: very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women,” (2 Sam. 1:26). The simple response to the insinuation of anything more than a bromance is this: David had never experienced the loyalty and selflessness in his romances with women that he had with Jonathan.
What David and Jonathan Teach Us About Jesus
In his book The Four Loves, CS Lewis writes a chapter on friendship where he reflects on why we, in contrast to pre-modern people value friendship so little. He asks, “How has this come about? The first and most obvious answer is that few value it because few experience it.”
I see the intimate friendship of David and Jonathan as a foreshadow of our friendship with Jesus. He is the friend who sticks closer than a brother. Jesus is more than the means of our salvation; he is more than the way of forgiveness or a second chance; Jesus is our friend.
In the Gospel accounts we see Jesus as the friend of sinners. He sits with them, eats with them, laughs with them, restores them to God. Jesus himself teaches this when he said to the disciples: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. YOU ARE MY FRIENDS if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you,” (John 15:13-15).
If we paraphrase the church fathers, we could say, “the Son became our friend so that we could become friends of God.” God exists in friendship, creates out of friendship, and invites us into friendship (everlasting friendship). We learn friendship from Jesus who is knitting himself to our souls as we follow him. John Perkins said, “Friendship is discipleship in action.”
When Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, he was telling his audience what it meant to be a friend (Luke 10). The Samaritan did nothing other than treat the wounded stranger on the road as a friend. He was a good friend. Jesus saw us on the road, wounded and abandoned, and reached out in friendship.
Friendship may not need to be so dramatic as the Good Samaritan story, it may be as simple as opening your life to another, to share life, to share the small victories, to pray over your defeats and trials. Friendship is the place where we practice grace, extend forgiveness, share the load of life.
It is so lonely an existence not to have friends. Maybe you have been burnt by friends in the past. Maybe you are reluctant to let someone in again lest they hurt you, abandon you, forget you. Maybe we are looking at friendship all wrong – perhaps, as we see in David and Jonathan, more so in Jesus, it is about pouring into others.
If you are alone and need a friend, begin with Jesus. He is a friend who is deeply knit to our souls.
David Crowder and Dante Bowe have a song that has been rolling around in my head all week as I thought about this sermon. The beginning goes like this…
I've got a friend
Closer than a brother
There is no judgement
Oh, how He loves me
I've got a friend
And He is my strength
He is my portion
With me in the valley
With me in the fire
With me in the storm
Let all my life testify
Hallelujah
We are not alone
God really loves us
God really loves us
Hallelujah
Oh, praise my soul
God really loves us
God really loves us. AMEN
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