Companionship

 

• Genesis 2:18
  And the LORD God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." 
   
• Genesis 2:21-24
  And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: 
  “This is now bone of my bones 
  And flesh of my flesh; 
  She shall be called Woman, 
  Because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 
   
• Proverbs 27:17
  As iron sharpens iron, 
  So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. 
  
   
• Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
  Two are better than one, 
  Because they have a good reward for their labor. 
  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. 
  Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; 
  But how can one be warm alone?
  Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. 
  And a threefold cord is not quickly broken. 
   

Related Scriptures

• John 15:13-15
  Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 
   
• 1 Corinthians 15:33
  Do not be deceived: 'Evil company corrupts good habits.' 
   
• 2 Corinthians 6:14-17
  Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christwith Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: 
  "I will dwell in them
  And walk among them.
  I will be their God,
  And they shall be My people."
  Therefore "Come out from among them
  And be separate, says the Lord.
  Do not touch what is unclean,
  And I will receive you."
  
   
• Galatians 6:1-2
  Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

• Proverbs 27:17 This is an indication from Scripture that, when we are in the companionship and the fellowship of others, we tend to shape each other. We rub off on each other. A clear illustration of this is our relationship with our children. When a child is born, he is not born with the inflections or the twangs of the area into which he is born. Nobody has to teach anybody how to speak "Brooklynese" or "Southern." The nasal tone or drawl just rubs off. The child picks it up. It is ingrained within him unconsciously. The same principle is at work in terms of character and personality. We rub off on each other. Are we rubbing off on each other for good, or are we rubbing off on each other for evil? Are we lifting one another up, or are we pulling one another down? We do not have to try consciously to do either. It will just happen. The world, largely, does not care how it rubs off on others - except that human nature wants people to think well of it, even while it is doing evil. But in our Christian fellowship, we have the responsibility before God to work to rub off on each other for good. As long as we are conducting ourselves aright, it will rub off in the right way. In other words, all we have to do is work on ourselves. If we work on ourselves, then the projection of the self, the spirit that will go out from us, will be right, and it will have the right kind of impact. God intends that prayer be an act of a free moral agent who consciously chooses to fellowship with God for the development of their relationship and the completion of himself as an individual. Do we realize that, when we pray, we are in the presence of God, and He has the opportunity to rub off on us? It seems so simple as to be almost unbelievable, but it is right. Some of His Spirit reaches out and begins to affect us for good. Prayer is a major tool in our spiritual development through God's rubbing off on us. All the while this is happening, our minds are being subtly shaped by Him because we are in His presence. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 Companionship has the benefit of producing strength. In unity, there is strength. In these proverbs given in verses 9-12, he means not only, for example, is there help in companionship for somebody who literally falls in a ditch (verse 10), but also, if somebody makes a mistake, a companion can cover it and maybe help him out so that the error does not hurt him so badly. Companionship gives strength because a companion can offer so much help. HELPER SUITABLE Given the Old Testament emphasis on the husband paying a price for the bride (e.g., Exod. 22:17) and the New Testament emphasis on the “headship” of the husband (e.g., Eph. 5:22 ff.), one might suppose that the Bible understands the marriage agreement as being between unequals. That is incorrect. In the first place, Genesis 1:26 ff. identifies men and women as equal representatives of the divine Image (see chap. 1). When this is coupled to the second chapter of Genesis, in which God creates the woman as a “helper suitable” for Adam, and when it is understood that these latter words, in the Hebrew, imply not inequality but rather the supportive help of equals, one begins to get a better picture of the nature of their covenant relation. Adam recognized an aspect of their equality when he spoke of their common human bond (v. 23). NOT A SLAVE An even clearer picture of their status relation is revealed by a close analysis of the concubinage laws. Leviticus 19:20 states a law governing the infidelity of a concubine to her master. It reads, Now if a man lies carnally with a woman who is a slave acquired for another man, but who has in no way been redeemed, nor given her freedom, there shall be punishment; they shall not, however, be put to death, because she was not slave (Emphasis added.) What this is saying is that in concubinage the woman is judged differently than in a “full marriage.” This reminds us of our previous comments about the terms employed of the partners. Baali implied “master,” whereas ishi implied status equality. Status equality, in turn, reminds us of the intimate companionship of a covenantal relationship. The partners are seen as “companions,” that is, two individuals bound together as equals. None of this should be construed as denying the biblical teaching that, within the marriage relationship, the husband is endowed with the qualities necessary for and has the responsibility to be the leader of the team. Even in teams of horses, one is commonly the lead horse. The fact that the man is the leader of the unit, the “head” as compared to “the body,” does not make him higher in personhood. Nor does it mean that his wife is less than an equal in terms of partnership. This is admittedly difficult to grasp. They are equally persons, equal partners, different in role responsibilities (with the husband being the final authority in familial decisions).57 WORTHY OF A “BRIDE PRICE” Modern people, when reading “bride price” passages in the Law, often jump to the conclusion that to pay for the bride amounts to her having been sold, and that this reduces her to the level of a slave.58 It is my conviction, however, that the God who is neither male nor female but who is the Judge of all the world would not do wrong. It is He who has inspired these passages. When we fathom His intentions, we come to see the justice and realism such passages express. Recognizing the potential for irresponsibility in husbands, these laws provide one of the best means for the woman’s family to discern the sincerity of a potential husband. Only a sincere suitor will place a value on his bride equal to nearly a year’s wages.59Her father, in turn, was expected to keep—perhaps to invest—the money for the woman’s future possible needs (cf. Gen. 31:15). The man who disregarded commitment and had uncovenanted relations with an unmarried woman60 was required to “pay money equal to the bride price for virgins” to the girl’s father (Exod. 22:17). A man who raped a virgin was charged fifty months’ wages (Deut. 22:29), and a man who publicly defamed his wife had to pay her father a hundred months’ wages (Deut. 22:19). In each case, the money was to ensure proper, future provision for the woman.  It functioned as collateral would in a loan. As such, it was a sort of prepaid alimony, to cover the woman’s needs against the possibility of unjust treatment or release by her husband—as if someone defaulted on a loan. This is based upon Exodus 21:11, where a mistreated concubine—a half wife, was to be released “without payment of money.” Although this passage deals with concubines, it would seem to be in harmony with Genesis 31:15, which deals with full wives that had been “sold” like concubines (as Laban sold Rachel and Leah). There will be further discussion about the use of concubine passages in a later section. A WILLING PARTNER If marriage is an agreement between equals, what part, if any, did the woman play in consenting to the marriage insofar as man ancient marriages were arranged by the families? Genesis 24 would seem to present us with a realistic picture. There, in the story of the procuring of a wife for Isaac, the servant of Abraham asks him what he is to do if “the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land.” The striking thing about this is that the servant did not know who the woman would be; his question seems to imply that women generally exercised the right to determine their marital partner. And though there may have been exceptions, I believe that it is safe to conclude that this was the rule in biblical times, at least among the ancestors of the Israelites.61 The Conditions of the Covenant If the partners are considered equals in their covenant, we would speak of the covenant as “bi-lateral.” And realizing that the marriage covenant is a bilateral agreement is a significant point to which the inquirer into the biblical view of divorce can come. For, as is pointed out about such covenants, they are “entirely conditional upon the acceptance and fulfillment” of the obligations to which the parties have agreed. Indeed, the authors of the article “Covenants” in Wycliffe Bible Dictionary state that “all human covenants are bilateral and conditional.”62 CONDITIONAL OR UNCONDITIONAL COMMITMENT? The astute reader will foresee the implications regarding the breakup of marriage that arise from such a view of covenant, namely, if the marriage vows are broken, the covenant is off, and a divorce writ is only a public statement of the facts. Those who are opposed to these implications may respond by opting for the obvious alternative, namely, that marriage is unconditional. Their major source of biblical support comes often from verses that analogically relate human marriages (a) to God’s unconditional relation to his chosen “bride,” the Church (Eph. 5:22-33) and (b) to the Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 15). From these passages the argument is drawn that, since God is faithful even though we are not, we should do the same with our spouses, since we should love them the way Christ loves the Church (Eph. 5:25). The husband should present his wife to the Father, just as Christ will present his bride the Church to the Father (5:26-27). Furthermore, it can honestly be questioned whether the covenants of God himself with individual human beings are always and in every respect unconditional. Some of the blessings of even the Abrahamic covenant are conditional (Gen. 17:14), even though the covenant itself is not. For although God’s promises regarding seed, land, posterity, and so on will be fulfilled to the descendants of Abraham corporately considered, the experiencing of any of these blessings by individual descendants of Abraham is conditioned upon their being circumcised of heart—an Israelite indeed (Rom. 3). Additionally, the marriage-divorce “metaphor” in the Old Testament is most often tied to the Mosaic covenant rather than to the Abrahamic. With regard to the conditional nature of that covenant, consider Deuteronomy 27-30. If the people then, or in future generations, disregard the unequal treaty of Sinai, cursings will come upon them. Jeremiah records the historical facts of the visitation of these curses, and notes: “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their father in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord (31:32 f) Sinai was a “bilateral,” or conditional, covenant. Its form is that of the Suzerainty treaty, a Hittite treaty between unequal parties. Analogies between God and marriage in the Old Testament seem most directly to relate to the Mosaic, rather than the Abrahamic Covenants. So too, the Davidic covenant was unconditional, but that did not mean that the positive promises to him always obtain to his descendants. Since a slave was an unequal partner, it stands to reason that a husband was expected to provide far better for his full wife. The slave could expect the minimum. The wife could expect better. The translator of the NET Bible argues in his note at that point that the word for food means “flesh”, which speaks not of minimum, but of food eaten by family members. This would imply even greater rights for a full wife. Consideration must be given here to the arguments by Walter Kaiser that the third provision in the list should be “ointments” rather than “marital rights.”71Noting that the Hebrew word in question is a hapax legomenon (once-spoken word), Kaiser questions the propriety of following the Septuagint (the Old Testament translated into Greek around 200 BC), whence arises “marital rights,” when similar, threefold lists of essentials from Sumer and Akkad (more contemporaneous societies) end with “ointments.”72 I do not believe that a close examination of the facts surrounding the choice in question does not, however, favor Kaiser’s conclusion. First, there is no assurance that because the similar lists are threefold and contain two common elements the third element is the same. The case would be stronger, of course, if the Exodus list was itself from Sumer/Akkad. Second, I believe that it is still preferable to follow the “authorized” translation of the Hebrew Scriptures by those familiar with the tradition than one that is based on inferences drawn from similarities. Kaiser does admit in a footnote that those arguing for “marital rights” do have two plausible supports for their alternative. The first is a linguistic point. The Hebrew term, though a hapax, is very similar to a word translated “to humble by ravishing [in illicit intercourse].” The second point is a cross-reference to 1 Corinthians 7:3, where Paul admonishes the husband to show his spouse “due benevolence,” which, in the context, certainly means to “grant sexual intercourse.” Why Kaiser rejects these supports virtually out of hand is puzzling. Though it is clear that the term cannot mean “humble by ravishing,” or “rape,” we must remember that the term in Exodus is slightly different. Perhaps the difference involves mitigation of the implications of humbling by force? In any case, the more evident linguistic elements do seem tied to sex rather than ointments. Second, though the cross-reference to Paul is less weighty, it does show that an Old Testament scholar of the early Church did see it as an obligation for the man to grant his wife sexual relations. Our Need for Companionship “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18a).  Human beings, whether male or female, are in need of companionship.  In this verse it is Adam who is all alone and very much in need of a companion.  The Lord graciously meets this need for him. God’s Principle “I will make a helper suitable for him” (Gen 2:18b).  The Lord created marriage for various reasons, but one of them was in order to meet humanity’s need for companionship.  In Genesis 2 Eve was perfectly created to help meet Adam’s need for a companion. It is important to note that the need for companionship goes far beyond the realm of the sexual.  We are indeed physical beings with physical needs, but we are also emotional and spiritual beings.   The Lord created the institute of marriage not only to meet our physical needs, but to meet our needs as a whole person: physical, emotional and spiritual.   The husband and wife are uniquely qualified to meet these needs of companionship for one another. Our Response Three questions to ask yourself: What is our overall approach to our spouse?   Do we approach them as someone to meet our needs, or do we approach them with an attitude of seeking to meet their needs? What are the unique ways that we are able to meet the needs for companionship that our spouse has Remember that our spouses might have emotional, spiritual or physical needs that differ from our own.  It can be very helpful to ask our spouse exactly what their companionship needs are and how we can best meet them.