Friendliness is an important, God-honoring quality. Romans 12:10 encourages us to love our Christian brothers: “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” Love is a trademark of Christians: “’By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another’”(John 13:35).
As with many areas of life, however, balance is important. Some friendships develop into unhealthy situations. If you are in an abusive relationship, remember that God created you and loves you and that you must protect yourself, even if that means running from a particular “friendship” and/or asking someone for help. If this is you, please find another mature Christian to confide in. Look back at a post on this blog entitled “If Your Brother Sins” and the posts preceding and following it for a reminder of the biblical approach to the sin of Christian brothers. Forgiving or ignoring the abuse of an unrepentant Christian brother doesn’t help him or glorify God, and it may mean the continuation of abuse to others, as well.
Many of us will not need an escape plan from an abusive relationship. However, there’s another aspect of friendships which deserves consideration by all of us. This wisdom is in a verse often misinterpreted. Proverbs 18:24a in the KJV reads, “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly.” Understandably, many of us who grew up in church-going families had parents or teachers who used that verse as an encouragement for us to be friendly: “If you want to have friends, you have to be friendly.” Wanting friends, however, is a rather self-centered motivation for being friendly, right? The greater weakness of this teaching is that it comes from an interpretation of the original text which is not entirely accurate. The NASB reads this way: “A man of too many friends comes to ruin.” The ESV is worded, “A man of many companions may come to ruin.” Reading the verse in these translations, we recognize that, even in the KJV, instead of being encouraged to be friendly in order to have more friends, we’re being reminded that time and effort will need to be expended in order to have many friends. These translations help us recognize that sometimes the time and effort spent winning and keeping friends may cause us to allow something important to slide.
The second half of Proverbs 18:24, however, is an encouragement to value the true friend in our lives: “But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Siblings may be friends, but sometimes they’re motivated by a competitive spirit or are not spiritually minded. Many siblings we read of in the Old Testament were less than kind. That friend, however, who remains your friend even when life is too busy for parties, who is by your side when life is hard, who sacrifices his own comfort to give you aid, who stands up for you when you’re bullied or wronged – he’s a better friend than your brother. Value him.
To be biblical in your friendships, remember these guides: 1) Be loving and treat others with honor. 2) Recognize that you have value and do not deserve abuse. 3) Ask yourself whether anything more important is being sacrificed because of time you spend on friends. 4) Value true friends.