As soon as 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.
– 1 Samuel 18:1
Is that not a beautiful verse depicting friendship between two people? Souls knit together in such a way that you love one another as your own soul, like the depth of your being.
1 Samuel 18:1 teaches us the beauty of deep, God-centered friendships.
Oh, when I read this, I just think about people who have loved me in my life. Family members and friends who have loved my soul. That have poured their life for my soul, been an encouragement to me, a help to me, pointed me to Jesus and what matters forever. I am so thankful for friends, family members, brothers, and sisters in Christ who have loved me like this. And I think about family members and friends, brothers, and sisters in Christ who I know and love like this, and have known and have loved like this. This is God’s design for us as his children.
If you just think about this, even this picture of knit to the soul. One of my favorite things when I travel around the world and meet brothers and sisters in Christ in different places, I love the instant fellowship that we have in Christ. Like, we may not even speak the same language, but we have the same bloodline. There are so many differences between us, but at the core, we’re brother and sister in Christ and our souls are knit together. This is such a beautiful picture that we get to experience in the body of Christ. So let’s love one another well then as the church. I just want to pray this over our relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ. So just think about specifically right now, friends specifically who are followers of Jesus.
1 Samuel 18:1 reminds us to seek and cultivate godly friendships.
Both of you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, and let’s pray for the people who come to your mind. Oh God, we praise you for the brothers and sisters in Christ who are around us that you have given to us to share life with. And God, even as I pray this, I am assuming there might be some people who don’t have a lot of Christian friendships for any number of reasons. And God, I just pray that you would provide those kinds of friendships for them. Lord, please provide 1 Samuel 18 kind of friendships for every single person listening to this right now. And in those friendships, God, in the relationships we have with brothers and sisters in Jesus, thinking about our local churches and then beyond local churches, God, help us to love each other well.
Help us to love each other as family, to speak kindly to and about each other, to build each other up in Christ, to encourage each other. To not say anything to each other that doesn’t build each other up in Christ or about each other. And to serve each other, putting one another’s preferences above our own. To look at their interests above our own. To care for them, to pray for them, to think intentionally about how we can build them up in you.
This verse pictures friendships that reflect God’s love to the world.
God, we praise you for making us a part of a spiritual family where our souls are knit to each other by your love, by your blood, Jesus. By your Spirit in us. So glorify yourself through our love for one another, just as you said Jesus, that people will know we’re your disciples by the way we love one another. God, we pray that would be true. That your love for us would be evident in the way we love each other, and it would be evident to the world around us.
And God, help us to work together to make your love known around us in the cities where we live. And we pray that our local churches would just be a beacon of your light and love to the people around us. That our friendships would be so deeply spiritual that they just stand out from every other kind of friendship in the world, in ways that lead people among all the nations.
Prayer for the Tawaif People
God, we pray specifically for the Tawaif people of India today. God, for 150,000 of them. Lord, we pray that your Church specifically in India would love one another and love the people around them in such a way that would lead to the Tawaif people being reached with the gospel. And God, we pray that you would send brothers and sisters out to reach the Tawaif people. God, we pray that all the peoples of the world would know your love because of the way your people love one another and work together, lock arms together to make your love known in the world. We pray this over our friendships right now and any friendships we have in the days to come with brothers and sisters in Christ according to this picture in 1 Samuel 18:1. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
