Jonathan: Laying down a crown

The Old Testament gives us plenty of examples of what not to do. But Jonathan is an exception. He's not known for his failures, but for his loyalty, his sacrifice and his friendship. 

In this episode, Ashley Jankiewicz, assistant editor for Adventist Record, joins us to tell the story of a man who gave up his crown, his clothes and his birthright for a friend. We explore what made Jonathan and David's friendship so extraordinary, why deep friendships are so rare today, and what it might look like to bring a covenant mindset to the people we love.

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What is Living Covenant?

The characters and stories of the Old Testament form a rich tapestry, revealing both the best and worst of the human condition—and, most importantly, how God relates to us.

Based on the Living Covenant book series, this podcast explores the sometimes messy lives of those who lived under God’s first covenant, asking what these blessedly unsanitised saints can teach us about living out our faith in relationship with a God who promises never to leave us or forsake us.

Welcome to the Living Covenant Podcast, where we journey through the messy human stories of the Old Testament explore what it means to live in covenant with a promise keeping God. I'm your host, Zanita. Let's dive in.   

 Hello. We are here with another exciting episode on another individual in the Old Testament, and today I'm here with Ashley.

Hopefully I get this right. Jankiewicz

Yeah, that was pretty good.

Yes. You must get this a lot though, I'm guessing

Yeah, yeah, I do. It's kind of a hard name to say.

Yeah, it's Polish, is that right?

Yep.

Yeah. Well, many people may know you, Ashley as the assistant editor for Record Magazine, but aside from work, do you wanna

a little bit about your world?

Well, I live in Sydney with a few great housemates. I love books, and I have a podcast about books with my sister, which is pretty fun. So yeah, I love to read. I love to write, love being outside. I go for lots of little walks near my house. So yeah,

a very wholesome life.

Thanks.

Now people likely won't know this about you. I think it's something that you are a bit shy about yourself, but it's actually so impressive is that you are writing a book of your own. Which like I said, is incredible, is amazing. I think that's something that so many people have on their bucket list, but most people don't actually get around to starting. Tell us how far through are you with writing that book?

 Um, currently halfway through my second draft. So solid. Yeah. Going pretty, pretty well. I'm pretty happy about it, so we'll see what

happens. Well, and how many, how many chapters are we talking.

There's like 15 chapters. It's roughly 70,000 words.

Very impressive. Well, let's get into this. You wrote on Jonathan for this Living Covenant series and I feel like it was inevitable in choosing Jonathan, that you also sort of touched on David as well. How can you not, but what was it that interested you about Jonathan and David's story in the Bible?

Like I mentioned before, you are one of the staff members with record, so you probably had first pick could have chosen to write about anyone in the Old Testament. Jonathan doesn't seem like an obvious pick or like a standout individual. So I'd love to know why it is that you chose to write about him.

 Honestly, it was because of a book series that I grew up reading, um, called Davey by Terry Fash, who is a historian who lives in the town that I grew up in.

And it's like Christian fiction, but it's. Very well researched, very biblically based and well written. And yeah, there was just a lot about Jonathan and Covenants and him giving up his crown. And I always really loved these books as a kid. And we started reading them as a family. There's like six and the sixth Thorn is coming out this year, so it's not even finished.

Oh, wow. We started reading first one as a family when I was like eight and so. Yeah, I've just been reading each one. It's come out and so, mm-hmm. Yeah. Kind of grew up with these stories. Kind of grew up with the story of Jonathan and Yeah, I just always really thought it was interesting.

That's cool.  Let's talk about this word covenant for a little bit. It's obviously in the title of this series, but also the word weaves throughout the biblical story. And we've chosen to base the series around this word because it's so significant. I think it's something that many people haven't really grasped the depth and meaning of, even for myself, it's something that I've only come to understand in the last few years, and maybe that's because the word isn't really used that much more. Maybe it's just because it's not unpacked regularly enough, but having read these books as a child is covenant something that you've understood since you were a kid or is it something you've come to understand later on or perhaps even as you were going through this series?

 I feel like I didn't really fully understand it as a kid. I didn't really get the whole idea of a covenant until I was at uni at Avondale and I took a few Theo classes and in one of those classes called Old Testament Meta Narrative, we actually discussed a lot about covenants, and that's when it kind of really hit home. And I feel like I understood what it meant.

Can you flesh that out? What, what to you does covenant mean?

Yeah. Covenants, they show up countless times in the Bible. It was a pretty regular thing in the ancient near East, often between like countries and various powers. And God cuts a series of covenants with Israel and with like certain people in Israel and the one that he cut with Abraham, where he promised to give him land and make him a great nation.

That that was pretty significant because. Yeah. Normally when a covenant was cut, it was between like a higher power and a lower power, and if the lower power broke it, they would take upon themselves the punishment, like the consequence, which was death. But in this covenant, God took that upon himself, pledging his own life, which kind of pointed to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus.

If

that makes

sense. It's like a, yeah, it's a bit of a flip of, I guess, the role.

Yeah. Yeah. So in a world of self-interest and selfish Gods Israel's God was set apart and. I think some people within Israel embody this idea of self-sacrifice, that God showed his people, and I think that Jonathan was one of them.

You know, Jonathan cut a covenant with David, and in doing so, he relinquished his throne by binding himself to God's anointed king, who then went on to become the ancestor of Jesus. Jonathan could have made things difficult. He could have tried to kill David like his own father did. In befriending David, he kind of became part of this bigger story, you know, where God rescues his people.

Yeah. There's this really awesome book. You might have read it, Ashley. It's called The Sonship of Christ and inspired Ty Gibson, and he talks about how covenant is one of the most meaningful words in the Bible because it's the idea that most fully defines who God is and how he operates. And he goes on to say that God is a God of covenant, and covenant involves living with unbreakable.

Relational integrity, which is of course something that we rarely, if ever see anymore. And I think that throughout this series we've read a lot of what not to do, kind of stories, right? Like there are many individuals in the Old Testament who are there, not as an example, but almost as a lesson to learn from.

But I think that Jonathan is an exception to that. I think there is a lot we can learn from him about loyalty and friendship and selflessness and. Ty Gibson goes on in his book to say, scripture is the story of God living in covenantal love toward us, with the aim of restoring covenantal love in us. And I really think that we see a glimpse of that in Jonathan's story.

I think it does extend to us in the same way that like Israel was God's chosen people, but then when Jesus came and died, basically everyone who accepts Jesus becomes God's chosen people. And so like the covenants that God. Made in the Bible with his people like that, that extends to us today because we are his people today.

I feel like today we don't. That word is very foreign. It's very old school. We don't really use that except for probably in marriage. But even with marriage, we kind of take it lighthearted because

mm-hmm.

You know, people are getting divorced, like right and center. It feels like it's a temporary promise almost, and people go into it sometimes.

I think a while ago they was talking about bringing in a law where your marriage covenant was for like 10 years, and if you wanted to renew it, you could, but it was no longer a lifelong thing. So they were like, well, maybe we should change this. And I feel like within a friendship as well, it's like, you know.

I'm sure you've done this. I'm sure everyone listening has done this. They've had a friend when they're a kid and they're like, I promise we'll be best friends forever. And how many times has that promise been broken? Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's, I think it's something that doesn't really hold a lot of depth or meaning anymore.

But let's go back to Jonathan and David before we kind of get into their friendship, their covenant like friendship. Where do their stories overlap? How do they meet? How do they come to know each other?

So it started according to the Bible when David first came from Bethlehem to the Palace because he was recommended as a musician in order to come play and soothe the king's evil spirit.

So they must have met when that happened. Uh, it's not really mentioned that they meet, um. And David kind of, we get this impression that he spends time like both with Saul in the Palace and back at home in Bethlehem, but he goes and visits his brothers who are fighting in the Army as they're fighting the Philistines.

And that's kind of where he ends up defeating Goliath. You know, he sees that Goliath is mocking the Israelites and he is like, you know. We can't stand for this. And he goes himself down with his sling, the classic, you know, David and Goliath story. But after that, Saul calls him to himself and like asks him like, who are you?

And. Then wouldn't let him return home. And the Bible says that Jonathan became one in spirit with David and loved him as himself.

Hmm.

So, yeah, it's not really explicit how it happens, but somehow they become really good friends. Jonathan was a fair bit older than David, and so they may have had some sort of like father-son relationship, mentorship.

We don't really know. But you know, they were good friends. They loved each other.

Yeah. To the point that they became, what did, what was the verse that you said? One in spirit.

Yeah.

Yeah. Interesting. And I just wanna confirm this is the same, David, you mentioned the same David that for Goliath, the same David that wrote the Psalms.

Yep.

Yeah. Most of the Psalms, yeah. Yeah. So do we know much about Jonathan before this? Is there any context given that helps us to kind of understand how he is this like integral, faithful person?

Yeah. Well. He's very loyal to God. And that's first shown in a story. It's like years before when Saul and Jonathan and the Army are once again fighting the Philistines and Jonathan took only his armor bearer and they snuck up the side of the cliff or something, and they were saying, if the Philistines say to us, come to us, we'll take that as a sign that God is with us.

And the Philistines did say that. They said, you know, come up to us and we'll fight you. And so Jonathan was like, bet let's go. And they climbed up the rest of the way, just the two of them straight into the Philistine camp and started fighting and caused a great panic, the Bible says, and ultimately won the battle just like that, you know, just because Jonathan trusted God, that just two of them could do something and.

We kind of get this, this idea that Jonathan was loyal to God above everyone else, which then extends later when he knows David. We see Jonathan chooses God over his own father, which must have been like a really agonizing choice given you know, the command and honor your mother and father, which they took basically as law.

And he must have recognized that his father no longer had God's support and he transferred his loyalty to David through the covenant that he cut with him. And that's like, that's just so significant that he chose David. He chose God over his own father.

Hmm. Is that what it means? When we read that he gave up his birthright as Prince to protect David?

Is that when he steps aside from his father and gives his loyalty to. So the same part of the story.

Yeah. Like through the covenant that he cut with David. That was him giving up his birthright, so.

Mm-hmm. And then we read, you said, mentioned this in your story as well, that Jonathan gave David his clothes.

Is that more of just like, I feel like for us that's, I don't like this anymore, or this isn't fit me, probably I'll give it to my friend. Is it the same or did that gesture mean something significant in?

Yeah, no, that was also really significant because. Um, in ancient Israel, your clothes and your weapons were symbolic of your rank, and so what Jonathan was wearing would have signified that he was the crown prince.

You know, anyone could just look at him and see, oh, he's wearing that. He's important. And by giving his clothes to David, he was showing that he knew David was the anointed and he was sacrificing his place as next in line for the throne. Like he was basically saying, okay, you are the crown prince. He was giving it up.

Wow.

So yeah, it was pretty big.

Yeah. So sacrificial and I guess probably bring David up to his same level because what kind of, I don't know, was David poor? Was he a man of wealth back then?

Yeah, well, I don't know exactly how wealthy David's family was. Um, he was from Bethlehem, which was a pretty small town in the south, and David was the youngest son of quite a few sons.

So, you know, he wouldn't have been high up on the ranking, wouldn't have probably inherited a heap. I don't really know what his family intended for his future to look like. But his rank was very far below that of Jonathan's.

Hmm. One thing that you mentioned in your article that I thought was really interesting and really cool was that Jonathan is not mentioned in the Bible beyond Chronicles.

He's not heralded in the Hebrews Hall of Faith. Instead, David is heralded as the hero, and it's because Jonathan. Constantly put him before himself. And I think that's such a beautiful thing because it shows how influential your friendship can be on another individual. It shows how your selfless acts can help form another person's life and change the trajectory of their life.

Like obviously God works in amazing ways and could have done things through David another way if Jonathan didn't. But I think it's pretty clear that David would've been in a different position and maybe wouldn't have been mentioned later on if it weren't for Jonathan's constant. Persistent, loyal love towards him.

I've always thought it's kind of sad that, you know, Jonathan isn't mentioned, but he must have made such an impact and I feel like at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you're mentioned, if you're heralded as a hero, but if you are the kind of person who can lead the way for other people and you know you can help them and mentor them, I think that makes a bigger difference than we know.

It's bittersweet. It's both sad and beautiful. Maybe sad for the Jonathans, but. Beautiful for the David's. I'd love to pivot it to talk about friendship in a more general sense and to see what we can learn from Jonathan and David's friendship. I feel like whenever you hear someone talk about a friendship these days that they've had since they were young, that's lasted the decades and been through thick and thin, many people find themselves thinking, wow, you are so lucky to have a friend like that.

But I'm sure that many of us could have had that if it weren't for distance and getting busy and losing contact and going through conflict and all that kind of stuff. But why do you think that it's so rare for friendships to stand the test of time these days? What do you think we are kind of getting wrong when it comes to friendship?

 Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of reasons, but I guess some of the main ones that I kind of think about is, first of all, we live in a very different world than say. Ancient Israel, it's very globalized. We don't stay in our little villages for our whole lives anymore. We move around. Um, I just had my second close friend in the space of a year move to the uk.

Hmm.

And so that's definitely a big factor. Another one I think is we're just so busy nowadays and society tends to prioritize things like climbing up the ladder, making more money, gaining more status, like it's good to be busy, important to get things done, be productive, and friendships often fall through the cracks because to become good friends with someone, you need time, right?

You need to be intentional, you need to spend time together. And it's not necessarily. Being super productive if you're just hanging out with someone and getting to know them. And nowadays we don't necessarily have that time to be able to invest into other people, you know, maybe outside a very, very tiny circle.

The last reason I've kind of been thinking about a bit, and I did touch on this in my article, that I feel like society really picks apart friendships nowadays, like all over social media. You see a certain ideal of like, this is what friendships are like, and you have all these books and these movies where there's these besties and you know, that's not necessarily always real.

Mm. And, and so you kind of get this idea of what a friendship should be like. And then if it was not necessarily like that, you think, oh, this isn't it. I'm gonna go look somewhere else.

That's so true. I feel like people are constantly looking for their friends click. And I mean, friends, like the TV show friends. I've heard this so many times where people have said, oh, I just haven't found my click, I haven't found my crew. And it's almost like they're expecting to find or stumble upon this perfect group of friends that they instantly feel at home with, or they instantly feel like they can be themselves with. And I think people don't consider sometimes that that actually takes time to get to that , and that often those, you know, perfect circles of the Chandler and the Rosses and the Monica and the Rachels doesn't exist, like people aren't that cool.

Yeah. And then there's also a lot of talk about, you know, toxic friendships. And you know what, that's important. It has its place, it's.

Super important to know about, be able to set healthy boundaries. I've also kind of noticed that that means that people get cut out of other people's lives quite easily. It's almost like there's no room for grace, no room for forgiveness and I feel like we're all gonna mess up at some point. We're all gonna annoy our friends.

At some point you're probably gonna hurt them, but it's kind of like a romantic relationship, right? Where you have to have to communicate, you have to forgive and. Of course, I'm not talking about like situations of domestic abuse. In those situations, you should leave and you should cut people out of your life.

I'm just kind of talking about your general day-to-day relationship maintenance.

Hmm,

that all makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I think you're right. I think there's certain circumstances, obviously that call for us to put in strong boundaries and cut people out, but I think that's probably rarer than we think.

I think often there is a lot of time to push into the discomfort and resolve things and talk about things, but that's really hard. So a lot of people, I think these days just throw those words like boundaries around or like toxic around.

Yeah.

Without, like you said, really giving people the grace that we deserve. Another thing that I've noticed is. You know, we often talk about this consumerist mindset within the church and with dating and with all sorts of different areas of our life. And I think in many ways we also bring that into friendship. You know, it's really exciting when you first become friends with someone because you have everything to talk about and you are just getting to know each other and everything is kind of fun.

But the longer you are friends with someone, the more you have to find things to talk about, and the more effort you sort of have to put in, the less exciting it becomes. Just like dating because you've known them for so long and. Realistically, at some point you're gonna have some conflict that you're gonna have to resolve or you're gonna have to push through.

So I think, um, yeah, that's probably another thing that kind of comes into the, into the picture when it comes to friendships these days, but. You mentioned in your article that you've had a particular friend who you've been friends for a while, and you guys have had these moments, like you mentioned, that you've had moments where she hasn't been the nicest to you.

What has helped you to have grace on your friends? Why have you not just walked away? Have you had this mentality or tell us about that?

Yeah, well, I've known this person for many, many years and. She's been through a lot. She's, you know, experienced a lot of pain in her life, and I can see that she reacts sometimes based on the things that have hurt her.

And I think if you really want to be a good friend, if you really mean it, it, it means putting up with some of that conflict, some of that hurt because you can see that the person is more important than that conflict, and it is possible to work through things. Be able to, um, put things past you that, you know, maybe have happened in the past.

And I feel like with this particular person, I have too much history with her and I love her too much. Just let those little things get in the way. And I kind of feel like that's why, you know, in my article I've talked about how covenants should, I think, apply to friendships too, because. A lot of the friendships we have with people are really important, and we only really talk about covenants nowadays in terms of like romantic relationships and marriage.

But I think it applies to platonic relationships too. You know, if you have someone in your life who you know you genuinely love and you want 'em to be a part of your life, you have to stick by them.

Mm. Yeah. In a way, I feel like committing, committing to a friend or having a covenant or. A relationship with friend.

Not that that's something that might be said on both sides, but like you committing to that person. I feel like that almost says more than if you were to commit to a marriage because it's like, you know, marriage, it's expected, right? Yeah. It's like you only say yes to one person in life because they're typically the person you love the most and you wanna spend the rest.

To your life with. And so it's like when you enter into a marriage, it's expected that you guys will go through thick and thin and that no matter what happens, that you'll kind of push through. But that's not expected with friendship. Yeah. And I feel like often, even in the church, I feel like we put romantic relationships on a bit of a pedestal.

In comparison to friendship, like we talk about how you get to know God through romantic relationships and you come closer to him and you have these epiphanies and rah, rah, rah. But imagine having a friend like Jonathan, like how much did David learn about God through Jonathan? How much did he see the character of Jesus because of his commitment to him?

Um, so I just, yeah, I think it is like a real underrated thing that we don't often see in relationships that speaks a lot of volume.

Yeah.

Uh, you mentioned a verse in your article. It's John 15 three, and it says, greater love has no one than this to lay down one's life for one's friends. What do you think this verse means in a world where we likely probably won't find ourselves in the situation where we'll actually give our lives to Ference?

Yeah. I guess Jesus laid down his life for us. He's the perfect example of sacrifice, and I think that that's the key word, sacrifice, like loving others like you, love yourself, putting the interests of others ahead of yours, not necessarily becoming a doormat and letting them walk all over you. You know, there's.

A balance of course, but not always thinking about yourself. You know, being kind without expecting recognition or things in return, forgiving instead of seeking revenge.

You draw on the parallel between Jonathan and Jesus in terms of this like selfless. Love, and there's a few verses in the Bible that talk about Jesus being our friend, and it sounds like that's something that you've learned.

But as you've read through the story of Jonathan, in your later years, has there been anything that stood out to you about the character of God?

Yeah, I think, I think for me, at the end of the day, it just, it's helped me realize how much like God. Loves me how much he loves people. You know, Jesus loved us, Jonathan loved David.

Love comes from God. I think there's an Ellen White quote. God is love, and love is life. And you know, I think as we draw close to God, we see his love more and more and we extend it to others. And it doesn't mean we have to be close to everyone or get along with everyone, but we can love everyone and we can extend grace to everyone, you know, including those who are close to us who have hurt us.

Beautifully said and a good reminder. Well, we have come to the end of this episode. Thank you, Ashley. I've enjoyed this conversation and I always love reading what you write. If you have reached the end of this episode, first of all, thank you for being here. You can read Ashley's article in the Beautiful Living Covenant book, which I have just got my first hard copy of. And if you are someone who hasn't really explored or understood the whole concept of the covenant between god and his people. Or if you're someone who has always just been a bit daunted by the Old Testament in general, then I would really encourage you to get your hands on a copy of this book. And if you wanna do that, you can find a link for it in the bio of this episode. you for being here again, and I hope you have enjoyed the conversation.

Bye.