Some thoughts on friendship
There are many types of friends: old friends, new friends, church friends, Facebook friends, work friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and so on. The Bible has so much to say on this topic. Here are some of the contours:
- Friends are a real part of human experience that can build us up or damage our lives.
For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! (Eccl 4:10)
One who is righteous is a guide to his neighbor,
but the way of the wicked leads them astray.
(Prov 12:26) - The Apostle Paul and Jesus had friends. Romans 16 lists Paul's closest friends. Read it and see the way he regards particular fellow believers:
Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. (Rom 16:8-9)
- Jesus teaches us a radical view of friendship. We should be open to those who have nothing to offer:
He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:12-14)
- Jesus treats us (who are rightly his enemies) as his friends, and also shows us how to treat others in turn. The way that we are called to love our friends is the same way that husbands are called to love their wives, and is the same way Jesus loved us:
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:12-15)
While there are always going to be people you get on better with inside and outside of church, I think we should always be open to developing more friends. Maybe next time you have a dinner party or a trip to the footy, you could put Jesus' words into practice and invite people who may not be able to pay you back. But there are friends who, when you show friendship to them, return it to you. Those people who stick with you through even the hardest of times are a blessing from God. However, in the first place, don't ask how others can be your friends, but how you can be a friend to others.
I wonder if part of the reason as to why there are whole ‘tribes’of people in our cities who don’t know a Bible based Christian is because we aren’t very good at making friends with people who are different from us. We tend to struggle to make friends with the homeless, those who have limited social skills or who are new to Australian culture, and those who do things differently from us or who like different things. I think I fall down in this too often.
Thanks Philip. I’m interested in what you say about tribes of people in Sydney.
I think immigrants can find it very hard to meet Christians, but I’m not sure about the homeless. Almost every city dwelling homeless person I have spoken to seems to have some contact with christian people. But those in ‘ghettos’ and temporary housing (ie. trailer parks - which we do have in Sydney) seem much more inaccessible.
On a different aspect of this topic. We had a very interesting discussion at our Bible Study last week about how Christ’s death could be described as both:
a. Dying for his friends. (John 15:13)
b. Dying for those who were his enemies. (Romans 5:10)
Hold these two together and questions remain. I think the answer to these questions adds such a richness to our understanding of the atonement.
1. Did Christ die for his enemies or his friends? In what way are we at the same time his friends and his enemies?
2. What is the greatest kind of love - love for enemies or love for friends? Remember that Christ says it is the latter (John 15:13) but also remember what he says about enemies (Matthew 5:43-48).
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