My husband and I have been traveling in New England celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary. One of the outstanding events of our trip was attending worship with a very small congregation on Sunday morning.
They have just hired a full-time minister, and we had a chance to visit with him and his wife. I was so impressed with the friendliness of this group of Christians. It still warms my heart to think about them.
They were so interested in us, where we were going, where we had been, our family, our home congregation. They invited us to share a meal with them, and they treated us like royalty.
This experience made me think about how we treat strangers and the effect it must surely have on those whom we meet. It has also made me think about how we react to those who might be in need of help, those who come into our lives even for a short time.
Different things draw us to people, even strangers. It may be similar occupations, mutual friends, similar beliefs, or just a genuine interest in people. Age doesn’t always make a difference, and sometimes long-lasting friendships grow out of chance meetings or unusual events. There are several such close relationships from scripture that come to my mind.
Jonathan and David were like brothers. I Samuel 18:3 says, “Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.” Their friendship continued through Saul’s jealousy of David and his attempt to kill him. It survived all the trials and tribulations of all three, and it continued as David took Jonathan’s son, Mephibosheth, into his care, feeding him at his own table after Jonathan’s death.
Elijah and Elisha began their close relationship with a command from God. God told Elijah to anoint Elisha to be prophet in his place, I Kings 19:16. Elijah then became Elisha’s mentor, and they traveled together. Verse 21 says that Elisha ministered to Elijah. Their relationship started in a field while Elisha was plowing, and it ended when God took Elijah to heaven, II Kings 2:11.
The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are filled with stories about Jesus and His disciples. He had a special closeness with Peter, James and John, taking only them with Him to His healing of Jairus’ daughter, Matthew 9:18-26; His transfiguration Matthew 17:1-13; and into the Garden of Gethsemane before His crucifixion, Matthew 26:36-46. He even gave the care of His mother to John in John 19:26-27.
The apostle Paul built many friendships as he traveled teaching the gospel and converting souls from the idolatrous worship in which they were engaged. He was persecuted, beaten, thrown out of cities, shipwrecked, and eventually killed; but his relationships stand out more than his trials.
Paul begins the book of Philippians by saying in verse 3, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.” He tells these people that he makes requests to God on their behalf, and he does it with joy. His memories of them must have brought him comfort.
He does something similar in the beginning of the book of Colossians. He says that he gives thanks to God, praying for them always. What a comfort this must have been to know that Paul was praying for them.
So now I think back to our experience with the church where we worshiped on Sunday, a place well over 1,000 miles from my home. Through a bond with Jesus Christ, we are bound in friendship though I may never see them again.
I will pray for the church, for their new minister and his wife, for a sweet little 94-year-old lady in that congregation that hugged me and wished me a happy anniversary; and I will do it with joy.
I can truthfully say of those people, as Paul said of the Philippians, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.”
Sandra Oliver
I am not saying this is true of you, but many people fail to see the relationship between Jonathan and David as any more than two boys who appreciate each other, but it was so much more than that.
Jonathan was not a young boy when he and David became friends. We know that Jonathan was a grown man with a son and was also a seasoned warrior within two years after his father (Saul) came to the throne (1 Sam. 13:1-3).
David is described as being quite young when he came to live with Saul. He is referred to as both a youth and a stripling. Even after Saul and Jonathan are dead, 2 Samuel 5:4 tells us, “David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years.”
Jonathan loved David and believed that God had given David the kingdom. “And he said unto him, Fear not: for the hand of Saul my father shall not find thee; and thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee; and that also Saul my father knoweth” (1 Sam. 23:17).
Because of his faith in God, Jonathan was willing to show the world that he acknowledged God’s choice of a ruler to succeed his father. It was knowing that David was God’s choice that made Jonathan and David friends.
When we consider the faith and humility of Jonathan, we can understand why he stripped himself of his kingly clothing and gave it all to David. It was both to acknowledge God’s ordination of David as king of Israel, and because his great faith and humility before God.