You Probably Are a Jonathan

Some years ago, Matt Chandler popularized the line, “You aren’t David.” It annoyed me, not because he didn’t have a point. He did. He was taking aim at that kind of preaching that turns David and Goliath into a motivational fable where you slay your personal giant, conquer your private battles, and make the Bible the soundtrack to the movie of your own life. That stuff really is a problem, especially in certain charismatic circles.

But Matt’s redemptive-historical overcorrection creates its own problem.

He’s right that Scripture is not chiefly about us. It’s about Christ. And from there he moves to making David a kind of stand-in for Christ and Goliath a stand-in for sin, death, and the devil. Jesus is the true and better David who alone defeats the real enemies of God’s people. Fine. True enough, as far as it goes.

The trouble is that Scripture itself refuses to let us stop there.

Paul tells us plainly that the Old Testament was written as examples for us. Some as warnings. Some as models. Hebrews 11 doesn’t parade theological abstractions before us. It sets real men and women in front of us. Real people whose actual faith, actual obedience, and actual failures are meant to shape ours. And David is right there among them. His faith is meant to stir us. His courage is meant to provoke us. His zeal for God’s honor is meant to wake something up in us. And at the same time, his sins remind us that he is not the king we ultimately need. In that way, he points beyond himself to Christ.

So no, we don’t want a way of reading the Bible that turns us into the hero of every story. But neither do we want a hermeneutic that robs us of the very examples God says He gave us.

That said, there is another sense in which you are not David.

He is one of the central figures in Scripture and world history. You aren’t.

Most us are not kings, great reformers, or men whose names anchor chapters of history books. We are ordinary men in ordinary places, raising families, working jobs, trying to be faithful. And yet many men live as if that is a problem.

People have started calling this mindset main character syndrome. It’s the habit of seeing yourself as the center of every room and everyone else as supporting cast. Reality becomes a movie. You’re the protagonist. That’s not new. It’s just self-centeredness. Or, more plainly, narcissism.

But social media has sharpened it. It trains people to narrate their own importance, curate a personal brand, and filter everything through how it affects me. And if you fall into it, it doesn’t just make you insufferable. It can rob you of great things

There are so many men who miss out on a good and productive life because they can’t be joyfully content with being number two, or even number five. They’ll only be happy if they’re the starting quarterback instead of the second-string safety. They have to own the business, not work for another man. They have to be the pastor who preaches most Sundays, not one of several pastors on staff. If they aren’t the big dog in some way, they can’t be at peace.

I’m all for men having a holy ambition, but it has to be paired with real ability and opportunity. It’s good to aim higher. But a lot of men get “passed over” because it’s not where they belong. Instead of facing that honestly, they tell themselves something rightful is being withheld from them. So they don’t build where they are. They don’t give themselves fully to the work in front of them. They wait to finally be released into the life they imagine they deserve. And while they wait, they slowly grow bitter.

Meanwhile, real opportunities for faithfulness pass them by. They won’t give themselves to the place God has actually put them, because they’ve decided it doesn’t count. It’s beneath them. It’s not the big time. Not because the work is small, and not always because they lack the ability for more, but because they’ve decided only one kind of role is a “real” one. And if they can’t have that, they’d rather stand on the sidelines than faithfully play the position they’ve actually been given.

Scripture confronts that lie by filling its pages with men who mattered profoundly without ever being the point.

Jonathan is one of them.

He enters the story of 1 Samuel under a shadow. Saul has already been told the kingdom will not remain in his house. Jonathan is introduced at the moment his future crown is quietly removed. He is the rightful heir who will never reign. And yet from his first appearance, he stands in sharp contrast to his father. Where Saul is fearful, Jonathan is bold. Where Saul calculates, Jonathan trusts. Where Saul centers himself, Jonathan centers God.

In 1 Samuel 14, Israel is stalled and outmatched. Only Saul and Jonathan even possess swords. Saul sits. Jonathan moves. He tells his armor-bearer, “It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few.” He does not build a strategy based on superior firepower. He advances in faith. The result is a small skirmish that God turns into a national deliverance. And the text is explicit: “So the Lord saved Israel that day.” Jonathan never imagined himself the point. God was.

This pattern defines him.

When David appears, Jonathan recognizes something his father refuses to accept: God has chosen another man to be king. After David kills Goliath, Jonathan binds himself to him in covenant. He strips himself of robe and weapons, royal symbols, and gives them to the shepherd. This is Jonathan acknowledging that the kingdom is moving away from his own house, and he yields without resentment.

From that moment on, loyalty complicates his life.

Saul’s jealousy turns murderous. David is driven into exile for an extended season. Jonathan must carefully navigate between father and friend, between blood and covenant. And when Saul explodes, “As long as the son of Jesse lives, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established,” Jonathan does not argue. He already knows that it is God’s will. And he still chooses faithfulness. He warns David. He protects him. He strengthens his hand in God. He tells him plainly, “You shall be king over Israel, and I shall be next to you.” His dad, the king, says, “You should be on the throne.” But God says you should be next to the throne, and Jonathan says, “Happy to serve.”

Everyone wants a Jonathan. Few are willing to be one.

Jonathan loves David, even though it costs him his expected future, his safety, and his standing with his father. He is not positioning himself. He is not hedging bets. He is aligning with the purposes of God, even when those purposes dismantle his own natural claim.

Jonathan dies as he lived: fighting faithfully in a broken house. He does not defect. He does not secure an exit. He stands and falls beside his father. His body is shamed. His crown never comes. And yet Scripture refuses to let him vanish quietly. David laments him with a grief reserved for rare men: “Your love to me was extraordinary.”

Years later, when David is secure on the throne, he asks a strange political question: “Is there anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” That question brings forward Mephibosheth, crippled and expecting judgment. Instead, he is seated at the king’s table. Not because of Saul. Not because of merit. But because Jonathan was faithful.

Jonathan’s loyalty outlived him. His covenant shielded his son. His righteousness altered a future he would never see.

Jonathan played an essential role in God’s plan to establish the Davidic throne. It does not happen the same way without him. And that reign continues to this very day through the heir of David, Jesus.

And he is not unusual. There are a lot of "other guys" in Scripture.

We know almost nothing about Silas. We know he walked with Paul. We know he was trusted. We know he suffered. And we know he mattered to the advance of the gospel. Scripture is full of men like this, men most people could not build a sermon series around, but who were a big deal to their families, their churches, and their local communities. God has never limited his work to stars and main characters.

Jonathan never wore the crown. He never unified the tribes. He never wrote psalms. He never built a dynasty. He never had a moment where the spotlight stayed. And yet Scripture goes out of its way to show us his faith, courage, loyalty, and the lasting weight of his obedience.

Jonathan is what our age cannot comprehend: a man who was essential without being central.

He could decrease without becoming bitter. He could strengthen the hand of the man who would replace him. He could be a faithful second. He could lose the crown and still win the story.

I once saw an interview with a character actor that stuck with me. The interviewer asked him if he ever regretted not becoming a leading man.

He said something like, maybe when he was younger. But over time he came to really enjoy the life he had. He had moderate fame. Some people recognized him, but not so much that he couldn’t go out in public and enjoy himself. He wasn’t hounded by paparazzi. And yet he had enough respect in the industry that he stayed busy, did good work, and got paid well enough to live a good life.

He said it was enough for him. And he was thankful.

That actor saw with clear eyes. He understood something many men never come to terms with: not everyone is cut out to be the leading man, and even fewer can accept that without resentment. He realized that chasing it, or even getting it, would cost him the very good life he already had. In that sense, he overcame main-character syndrome.

You don’t need to be David to live a happy and productive life. Look at where you can further God’s purposes right in front of you. Max out the skills you actually have. Take full responsibility for the opportunities God has actually given. Be like Jonathan. He was content to be used by God in whatever capacity, and God delights to use nobodies for His glory.