Brotherly Love
Brotherly love, or love based on fellow
feeling, is what allows same-sex bonding.
Before he was king of Israel, David developed a
strong bond with Jonathan, the son of the
then-current king Saul. Since he was
well-known for his love of godly principles which
clearly condemned homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22;
20:13), David's relationship with Jonathan is a
great example of brotherly love. So strong
was this love, that after Jonathan died David
chanted a dirge which included the statement "I am
distressed over you, my brother Jonathan, Very
pleasant you were to me. More wonderful was your
love to me than the love from women" (2Samuel 1:26).
This poignantly illustrates how brotherly
love may be stronger than romantic love, although no
sex may be involved in a brotherly relationship.
The reason for this is that brotherly feelings
draw from what one has in common with another
person, and a person may have a lot in common with
another person of the same sex, thus not needing any
physical attraction to cement the bond.
While members of the opposite sex may
also bond by sharing many things in common,
attraction to the opposite sex is based at least
partly on complementarity, where one sex provides
what the other lacks. This, according to the
book of Genesis, was a part of God's provision to
Adam (Genesis 2:18). But the fact that the
woman was made as a helper to the man shows that
brotherly love or fellow feeling would also be
present between husband and wife, although they were
to be complementary. They were to share by
being partners in the many wondrous tasks of
producing and providing for a family, and in their
role as custodians of the earth. The fact that
men are of opposite sex to women, while a great
blessing in that it allows for fruitfulness in
reproduction, in no way prevents the benefits which
come from the uniting of two people in a common
purpose, a pooling of resources (Ecclesiastes
4:9,10). In this light, it is interesting to
note that the Hebrew word for "woman" means simply
"female man".