The Value of a Friend - Ecclesiastes #16

 

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

⁹ Two are better than one,
Because they have a good reward for their labor.
¹⁰ For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.
¹¹ Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone?
¹² Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” There is something considerably more stinging about Ebenezer’s words than a simple refusing to be charitable. In stave three of A Christmas Carol, he gets to see that in his clerk’s frail son, Tiny Tim Cratchit. As the Ghost of Christmas Present reminds him of what he said to the gentlemen seeking a donation to help the poor, he now has a face. A face of a young boy soon to succumb to a preventable death. The Ghost scoffs it’s like hearing “the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”

In the above passage, we see the value of family, friendship, and community. These words remind us that God declared it was not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18). Other beautiful friendships in the Bible, such as David and Jonathan; Ruth and Naomi; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego; Paul and Timothy (and Barnabas, and Silas, etc.). Just as these needed each other, we need others in our lives as well. For friendship, for holding each other accountable as we grow in our faith in Christ, for strength as we are witnesses for Jesus in this depraved world, and for so much more. For Scrooge, the Ghost reminds him of the people in his life who can support him and he them; his nephew Fred and wife, Bob Cratchit and his family, and others (some worse off and some better off).

Let us think like Fred does, when he sees the Christmas season as the only time “when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.” (Let this be every day!) This is one of many reasons why we need to be gathering with like-minded believers as often as possible to study the Scriptures, worship, pray, and encourage one another. Together, let us strive to follow our True Shepherd. When we do that, as King David said, we “shall not want” (Ps. 23:1)!

In Christ Alone,

Dan

Quotes from – Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol: The Original 1843 Edition (Charles Dickens Classics) (p. 12, 57, 9). Global Publishers. Kindle Edition.