Camping With David & Paul

“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”
- John 4:23

Could there be two people any more different than Paul and David? I love to study the lives of people in Scripture, and I love to study the spiritual nature of those alive today who comprise what we call the body of Christ. God has made us unique by employing His creative powers. Our personalities are as distinct as our fingerprints. David was a lover of God. He was the supreme worshiper who danced before the Lord and loved the sound of music. He turned the heavens into a mural painted across the sky, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8:3-4).

Paul was a passionate evangelist who had little time for romantic notions of life and nature. He used nature as an apologetic to prove the existence of God “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). Paul appeales more to the intellect while David touches our emotions. Paul gave evidence for God’s existence while David gave reasons to worship. Paul gave us polemic (argument) while David gave us poetry.

Paul built arguments and forced man to see his condition before a holy God. David weaved poetry and appealed to the emotions perhaps more than he did the intellect. Certainly there were overlapping truths that both shared. David said, “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.” (Psalm 14:1a).

However their basic natures would have clashed had they been forced to work together. I can just see Paul and David after a hard day of church planting, laying down under the stars only to have David poetically describe the moon and the mighty hosts of heaven. Paul may have responded with, “Will you be quiet, I’m trying to sleep, and we have a big day ahead of us.”

Don’t you see yourself in these characters? We often have conflict in life over the very beauty of our differences. What should be used to supplement what we lack is often seen as a frustration or threat. Maybe we need to go camping with someone who looks at life differently than we do. At least that’s the way I see things.