Scripture Daily

Context No. 443 of 4322 · 1 Samuel

Context · Reflection

1 Samuel 14:7-12: in context

7His armor bearer said to him, “Do all that is in your heart. Go, and behold, I am with you according to your heart.” 8Then Jonathan said, “Behold, we will pass over to the men, and we will reveal ourselves to them. 9If they say this to us, ‘Wait until we come to you!’ then we will stand still in our place and will not go up to them. 10But if they say this, ‘Come up to us!’ then we will go up, for the LORD has delivered them into our hand. This shall be the sign to us.” 11Both of them revealed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines; and the Philistines said, “Behold, the Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they had hidden themselves!” 12The men of the garrison answered Jonathan and his armor bearer, and said, “Come up to us, and we will show you something!” Jonathan said to his armor bearer, “Come up after me, for the LORD has delivered them into the hand of Israel.”

This is the moment just before Jonathan and his armor-bearer launch their astonishing two-man attack on a Philistine garrison, and it turns on a short exchange between them that is easy to rush past. Jonathan has proposed something reckless: that the two of them, alone, climb up and take on an enemy outpost, trusting that God can save by many or by few. And his armor-bearer, whose name we never learn, answers him with one of the great sentences of loyalty in the Bible. Do all that is in your heart, he says. Go ahead; I am with you, heart and soul.

Sit with what that companion offers. He is not the leader here; Jonathan is the one with the bold conviction and the plan. The armor-bearer's role is simply to be completely, unreservedly with him. He does not hedge, does not list the risks, does not try to talk Jonathan down into something safer, does not demand a share of the glory or insist on his own plan. He says, in effect, whatever your heart is set on, I am fully in, with everything I have. And it is worth noticing that Jonathan's whole faith-venture depends on having that one person. He then sets a sign to confirm God's leading, if the Philistines call them up, they will go, taking it as God delivering the enemy into their hand, and the sign points them straight up into the danger. But none of it happens without the armor-bearer's wholehearted I am with you. Bold obedience is hard enough; it is far harder alone, and this man gave Jonathan the priceless gift of a companion who was all in.

That raises two questions worth sitting with. Do I have anyone like that, and, more searchingly, am I anyone like that? When someone near me is stepping out in a bold, risky act of obedience, am I the armor-bearer who says, do what is in your heart, I am with you heart and soul, backing them fully without needing to lead or to be safe, or am I the cautious voice that hedges and hesitates and quietly talks people out of the very ventures God is calling them to?

Sources