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Commitment is about loyalty and love in the face of discouragement and difficulty. Discipleship is all about a radical commitment to Jesus: ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14:26). We’ve already seen Jonathan’s tremendous risk-taking courage in 1 Samuel 14, but now we see his risk-taking commitment to the true king.
This chapter is all about the commitment Jonathan is willing to make to David in the face of Saul’s intentions to kill David. Essentially, Jonathan has to choose which side to be on, and he chooses the kingdom of David rather than the kingdom of his dad, Saul. This commitment is a very deep, costly and profound one. It has the form of a covenant, which, in the Bible, is a binding commitment of love sealed with promises. We see that the language of ‘covenant’ is used throughout the chapter (see vv. 14–15, 17, 42).
Jonathan makes a covenantal commitment to David in verse 16. In other words, he binds himself to David in the most solemn way possible, and calls the Lord as witness to it (vv. 8, 21, 42). The crown prince, amazingly, has deliberately sided with the Lord’s chosen king above his own father (vv. 9, 30), and even above his own future kingdom (vv. 14–15, 31). He has chosen David when David is on the run, hunted down by Saul and everything is against him. Nonetheless, Jonathan, with eyes of big faith, trusts that the Lord will give David the final victory (v. 15).
We’re being shown here what commitment to the persecuted king means. It means loving Jesus above family, our own success and prosperity. It’s about living out a solemn, binding promise to put his priorities and his kingdom before everything else in our life. Do we have Jonathan’s big eyes of faith to see what is coming?
REFLECTION
1. Why is Jesus worth this kind of commitment?
2. Why might that commitment seem costly here and now?
Scripture
About this Plan
1 Samuel charts the rise and fall of several of Israel’s leaders. You’ll meet the notoriously arrogant king Saul and see the ascent of the man after God’s own heart – David. You’ll read of dangerous battles, murder plots, giants and even more surprises in this book. You’ll see that despite turbulence in leadership, seemingly strong enemies and spiritual decay God is very much at work orchestrating the fall of the proud and the rise of the humble. What an encouragement for us today when we are faced with challenges not too dissimilar to these!
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