Friend or Foe?

            As David returned after the slaughter of the Philistines, “. . . the women had come out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul with tambourines, with joy, and with musical instruments.  So the women sang and danced, and said: ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands’” (I Sam. 18:6).  Proverbs 14:20 teaches, “A sound heart is life to the body, but envy is rottenness to the bones.”  King Saul’s seemingly bi-polar personality of narcissism and inferiority was not submitted to God and it drove his negative behavior toward David.  I Samuel 18:29 relates, “And Saul was still more afraid of David.  So Saul became David’s enemy continually.”  Saul had at his disposal a great warrior and leader in David and instead of valuing him for his abilities, he hated him out of envy.

            Paul was a master of apprenticeship; he lovingly sowed into the lives of his students and counted their victories as his own toward God.  Within Paul’s announcement of Timothy, his son in Christ, Paul writes to the Corinthian Church, “For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.”  Paul understood well the law of duplication in the people that God entrusted to his care.  The name Timothy or Timotheus, means “honored of God, worshipping of God or valued of God” this gifted young evangelist was loved immensely by Paul (Lockyer, ATMOTB, Page 329).  Paul strengthened the body of believers by discipling and trusting young Timothy to function in the position God called him to.  Leaders must hold lightly the things of God; as, all things are His and are given for the health of the church and not for personal gain. 

Lockyer, Herbert.  All the Men of the Bible.  Grand Rapids:  Zondervan Publishing House, 1958.