What is Friendship?

Friendship … true friendship … is something that people are searching for, and find themselves depleted without. All people are looking for three ingredients in life – acceptance, value and belonging. People want to be appreciated. These areas of life can only be addressed relationally. If people are to grow in a healthy way, friendships are indispensable.

We have been designed by God as relational beings. The Trinity (of Father, Son and Spirit) have always lived in eternal covenant friendship or communion with one another. This is the relational God in whose image we have been created.

The psalmist cries out (in Psalm 142:4), Look on my right hand and see – there is no one who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me; no one cares for me.

The song by Casting Crowns, “If we are the body”, reminds us that followers of Jesus in the church should be well-placed to reach out their hands in friendship … representing the best friend a person can have … Jesus.

Describe friendship? Oxford = Mutual benevolence = mutual meeting of one another’s needs. What about this … people who share and care for one another; or … an expression of generous hospitality.

What is a friend? One who is on the same side; a regular contributor of help.

Proverbs 17:17 puts friendship on the same level as family relationships –

A friend loves at all times, and kinsfolk are born to share adversity.

Ideally, the love and care of a friend never wavers or falters.

Proverbs 18:24 takes this further and lifts even higher the notion of friendship –

Some friends play at friendship, but a true friend sticks closer than one’s nearest kin.

A friend will ‘stand in the gap’ for another, especially when family are either missing or unhelpful. Really tight friendships form when a person is there where they are needed in times of adversity (caused by incidences of illness, grief, unemployment, depression).

There is also the notion in the first part of Proverbs 18:24 of someone seemingly being a “friend”, but, through events that occur, it doesn’t turn out to be that way. This would usually be because the “friendship” is not really mutual, but actually unbalanced towards one person’s individual needs more so than the other's.

Close friendships need work to keep them active and in good repair; and friendships also need guarding from the negative power of misunderstandings and disputes.

The possibility of friendships having little depth or being broken is covered earlier in Proverbs 17:9 –

One who forgives an affront fosters friendship, but one who dwells on disputes will alienate a friend.

Conversely, forgiveness is such an important aspect of friendship. The existence of only partly healed wounds limits friendships, and retracing old issues can lead to aggravation. The breaking of trust or solemn confidences (through loose tongues) can dissolve friendships for ever.

A good example of a functioning friendship is Jonathan and David. Even though Jonathan was the son of the jealous King Saul who was trying to kill David, Jonathan initiated and maintained this friendship. Jonathan also tried to argue David’s case before his father Saul, to try to get him to accept that David had done nothing wrong, indeed quite the opposite. Friendship is often about addressing the injustice our friend is experiencing. Friendship is sometimes about ‘standing in the gap’ and seeking to bring reconciliation between warring parties. When David remained in danger and was hiding in the desert, Jonathan sought David out to encourage him, doing so at some personal risk! We read about two more important facets of friendship in 1 Samuel 23:15-18.

First, in verse 16, we read that Jonathan strengthened [David’s] hand through the Lord. This was like saying that Jonathan was helping David retain his ‘grip’ on God. Understanding the strain David was under, Jonathan brought words of encouragement that would serve to remind David of God’s faithfulness and the future plans that God would bring into being. David would also be strengthened through Jonathan’s presence with him in such tough times. We also see here what we might term a ‘friendship forged through God’, or nowadays a ‘Christian friendship’. This is because Jonathan and David were able to share in an acknowledgement of what God was doing in their lives, which would place them into particular God-ordained roles. There would be no second-guessing or complaint that David would be taking the position that by birth should have gone to Jonathan.

Second, in verse 18, we see Jonathan and David renewing their covenant of friendship – before the Lord they would seek each other’s welfare as much as their own. Earlier in 1 Samuel 18 (verse 1) we read, “… the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul”. Such a friendship would be able to survive distance, trouble, and also Saul’s attempts to turn Jonathan against David (19:1). Such a ‘covenant’ of friendship is not just an agreement in words, but more a God inspired heart-felt relational vow; and Jonathan and David felt accountable to God for maintaining their friendship. Being such a party to a ‘true’ and loyal friendship, makes one an indispensable contributor to the life of another!

Michael W. Smith captures all this beautifully in his song “Friends are friends forever”.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (the German theologian and martyr) said, “The aim of friendship is exclusively determined by what God’s will is for the other person”. Now this particular thought certainly takes friendship beyond simply making another happy or just functioning at a convenient non-threatening undisturbed low common denominator. Sometimes friendship has to be about saying the hard thing or sharing the tough word. The mutuality of friendship requires one to have the courage and the gentleness to say what is needed, while the other has the openness and trust to hear what is being said in love. This is where the rubber hits the road in a covenanted friendship of the type Jonathan and David had. This is a friendship based on making sure the other person reaches their full potential in God (irrespective of any short-term uneasiness). Such a friendship has spiritual growth and discipleship at its heart. So beyond good times, common interests, fun and laughter, is the higher goal of sowing into our friends lives the words of eternal life (David Roper, ODB, 2/4/13). Such words are reminders of God’s wisdom and refreshments in God’s love, which strengthen our friend’s grip on God.

Jesus himself had friends who he cared for deeply. One of these was Lazarus – we would remember Jesus weeping at the news of Lazarus’ death (John 11:11,35). Jesus selected twelve disciples who he would live with and travel with for the next three years. In John 15:15 we read that Jesus considers his disciples to be his “friends”.

Despite his natural affection for these friends, Jesus had to straighten them out at times with some tough love. When Peter sought to disrupt the path that Jesus was to take to the cross, Jesus said to him what may seem to us very harsh at first glance – “Get behind me Satan” (Mark 31-33). When James and John wanted to gain the key seats in heaven as a matter of status, they were given a very clear reality check concerning the sort of servanthood they were being called to (Mark 10:35-45).

Yet in friendship, Jesus did not demand anything he wasn’t prepared to give. Jesus gave up his whole life in the cause of friendship. Jesus sets the standard when it comes to loving others. We read earlier in John 15:13, No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. And this is precisely what Jesus did! Part of Jesus’ love for his friends was also revealing to them what God was like and what God required of them. The disciples would be in no doubt about the requirement to love others in response to Jesus’ love for them. This is part of the ‘new covenant in Jesus’ blood’ that is quoted when we share communion. We have seen that there is certainly a sacrificial element to friendship.

There’s another thing about Jesus’ friendship towards us … it persists through our rebellion, and also through our forgetfulness of our side of the covenant. Just like God kept giving ancient Israel another chance after another chance, Jesus remains solidly available to us as our friend. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (refer Romans 8:35-39).

This is perfectly demonstrated by Jesus’ habit of befriending outcasts … those generally termed “sinners” i.e. prostitutes and tax collectors. Sometimes friendship needs an initiator, and in the beginning the level of care is not mutual but a bit more one-way. But often, as was the case in many of the incidents we read in the gospels – when Jesus offered friendship … people responded in kind! For example, the prostitute who cleaned Jesus feet with her tears and hair, and Zacchaeus who threw a party for Jesus and also sought to rectify his injustices. Friendship brings practical evidence of the availability of the grace of God!