Good Friends Tell the Truth

After David’s sins of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah, Nathan the prophet is told to visit David and deliver a message from God. We see from previous chapters that David and Nathan spend quite a bit of time together (2 Sam. 7). I would even venture to call them friends.

Nathan had the uncomfortable job of needing to deliver a hard truth to his friend, David. He starts by using a parable of a poor man with one sheep and a rich man with many. The rich man steals the poor man’s sheep, and David is outraged at the audacity of the rich man and wants him punished.

Nathan then delivers the blow:

2 Samuel 12:7-9 KJV
And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.

By correcting David’s sin, Nathan proved himself to be a good friend and a faithful minister. In fact the book of Proverbs says that good friends, like Nathan, make us better people:

Proverbs 27:17 KJV
Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

We can become a better version of ourselves if we surround ourselves with Godly people who are willing to call us out on our errors. It’s hard to hear the truth, but a wise man takes the correction and applies it:

Proverbs 9:9 KJV
Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.

While David likely did not enjoy hearing the truth of God’s word that day, he appreciated it later on. In fact, he named one of his future sons Nathan (1 Chr. 14:4), likely after Nathan the prophet.

This son, Nathan, was the one in the lineage of the Virgin Mary, and therefore of Christ (Luke 3:31).