Friendships are measured in different ways. We may have hundreds of acquaintances. We have childhood pals and colleagues at work.

But the friendships we cherish most are fewer in number.

Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindall continues his brand new series on The Fruit of the Spirit.

And in this study he's addressing a virtue that takes our friendships to the highest and rarest level.

Can you guess which one it is?

It's the glue that held David and Jonathan's

friendship together. Chuck Tidal today's message, The Bond Between Close Friends. Paul wrote to the Romans and told them whatever was written in earlier times was written for our learning that

we through patience and comfort from the scriptures might have hope.

When he wrote that, there was only the Old Testament, really portions of the Old Testament

available to people in that era.

And so he was referring to sections

just like the one we will be looking at today.

This passage we're looking at in 1st Samuel, chapters 18, 19, and 20 are written for

our learning. Through an understanding of them we might have renewed hope.

We're thinking about the fruit of the spirit in the series and we've come to the seventh in the cluster

that he calls the fruit singular all, or in that cluster.

And the seventh is faithfulness.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.

Next time will be gentleness, and then finally,

self-control. I've chosen a passage in 1st Samuel 18 because of the example of Jonathan and

David during a very critical time in David's preparation for becoming King,

a time of testing when he and Jonathan became faithful friends with one another.

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