This post is part of my ongoing series of writing down my thoughts on the Bible passages I read each day. Some days I hope to have great insight that the Lord gives me, and many days, I will likely struggle through the text and not know what to write down based on what I read. My hope and prayer is that as I make this a habit, just as I did daily writing for so long, that I will improve on my ability to read and understand the passages I’m reading. Please keep in mind that many of these posts may be published late at night or with little time studying and simply be my first thoughts after reading. This is in no way a commentary that one should use to discern the Bible, but my own personal thoughts.
Benefit of the doubt.
Misinterpreted communication can be one of the most dangerous things. Likely the cause of many wars, and here is a prime example. David sends his men to console and give gifts to the new king of Ammon since his father died. He says, since his father dealt loyally with me, I’ll deal loyally with his son.
His desire is to have an amicable relationship with this new king. However, whatever counselors this new king around him convinced him to think that David was doing it to spy out his land to attack him.
The king listens and it causes a huge miscommunication that results in war. It seems it’s often to start by giving the benefit of the doubt until you find that what you thought isn’t true. That’s how our courts work, right? Or that’s how they’re supposed to work. Innocent until proven guilty.
If we give people the benefit of the doubt, we will surely be taken advantage of sometimes, but if we never give the benefit of the doubt, there’s no doubt we won’t benefit.