Introduction
So I still haven’t made it around to writing that article on Benjamin Franklin… I will at some point, but right now, as is about to become fairly apparent if my last article didn’t already make it apparent, I’ve been thinking a lot about other things relating more to the philosophy rather than the history side of this blog. Today’s focus is on the philosophical aspect of friendship and the biblical pattern we see for it.
While the Bible has a great deal to say about the sorts of people we should (and should not) associate with as well as how we are to treat fellow Christians regardless of how close we are to them, it does not have as much to say about the sort of friendship we think of in modern contexts. Certainly, there are biblical patterns of friendship that we can observe and make some general conclusions about, but in the absence of precepts about the modern ideas of friendship, we have to rely on more general principles, common sense, and reason. That’s where philosophy really comes in here. So let’s dive in.
Defining Friendship
As mentioned earlier, there are not too many biblical precepts or commandments that provide us with a clear cut definition of what a friend is. However, to start with what we do have, Proverbs tells us a great deal in principle about friends as well as, by precept, some types of people we shouldn’t befriend. Here are the main points on what sort of man we should not befriend:
1. Troublemakers and those who gain through unjust means (Proverbs 1:8-19)
2. Fools (Proverbs 26 discusses all the different manifestations of foolishness in detail, but this includes the perpetually lazy, those who refuse to recognize they messed up or does not understand and learn from the consequences of their foolishness, troublemakers, and talebearers or gossips)
3. Those who find your way an abomination even though it adheres to God’s law and principles (Prov. 29:27; Ps. 1:1-3)
4. Those with a temper, angry or violent men (Prov. 22:24-27; 16:29)
5. Those who cause division (Rom 16:17; Prov. 3:31-32)
6. Flatterers (Prov. 27:5-6; Eccl. 7:5)
And what does the Bible have to say about the sorts of people we should seek to befriend? Proverbs and other sections of Scripture speak repeatedly to this in the context of the company we keep. The following chapters and verses in Proverbs give excellent, succinct advice. (Prov. 9:17; 12:26; 13:20; 27:5-6; 27:9, 17) Here’s a summary to review:
1. Wise men
2. Honest men
3. Those who will help you grow (iron sharpens iron)
4. Those who rebuke openly when needed rather than telling you everything you want to hear
5. Godly men (Psalms also has much to say about this)
As far as patterns go, the Bible provides us with both examples of friends that helped and friends that guided astray. For example, if we look at the friendship between Jonadab and Amnon, we see that friendship involved manipulation, encouragement to sin, flattery, and justification of wrong thoughts and desires rather than proper rebuke, encouragement to righteousness, honesty, and frankness. What did that lead to? Amnon raping his half-sister Tamar and then dying at the vengeful hand of his brother Absalom, whose bitterness toward David for allowing Amnon to go unpunished for his heinous behavior and sin would grow into full-fledged rebellion that also led to Absalom’s death. The person at the center of all of it? Jonadab, one bad friend who sought his own gain at the expense of the people around him.
But we also see patterns of good friendships in three other key places: David and Jonathan, God and Abraham, and Ruth and Naomi. What were the characteristics of each of those? (Note that the second one is a pattern we can use to help us know how to react to God as our friend as well as our God, but while some of the principles still apply to our human relationships, not all of them do.)
David and Jonathan:
– Extremely loyal to one another
– Loved each other like brothers
– Looked out for and protected each other
– Shared godly values and philosophies
– Supported one another
– Honest with one another
– Willing to die for one another if need be
– Valued one another for the values that made the other person who they were, which was the basis for the kinship they felt and the sense of their hearts being knit together
God and Abraham:
– Loved each other
– Respect
– Trust from Abraham toward God
– God’s provision in turn when Abraham relied upon Him
– Abraham’s desire to please God and grow closer to Him
– God’s blessing as a result
– Obedience from Abraham based upon the trust/love in the friendship
Ruth and Naomi:
– Mutual respect and love
– Ruth took care of Naomi in her old age
– Loyalty
– Naomi reciprocated by trying to make certain Ruth would be cared for too
– Naomi shared her wisdom and was honest with Ruth
– Both women acted to preserve the elements of the relationship that they valued in the other, acting upon the loyalty and trust that had been established
From these patterns, we learn that friendships must be based on shared values, respect, trust, and heading in the same direction philosophically. As Amos says in Amos 3:3, how can two walk together if they are not in agreement? This doesn’t mean that any of these friendships lacked conflict, moments of distrust or problems to be overcome, or even that these friends were not at times separated.
In David and Jonathan’s case, Jonathan was separated from David for a long period of time and would eventually die thanks to his father’s own disobedience and in order to clear the way for God to place David on the throne. But the friendship remained strong because the things they valued themselves and valued about each other went beyond the utilitarian aspects of value each had. Jonathan, had he been more superficial, could have viewed David as a rival the way Saul did. Instead, he accepted that David’s future as revealed by God was a part of who David was and that attempts to change it were a) futile in this case and b) would change some fundamental aspect of who David was. If he tried to change David’s course, which was what had brought them together and part of what made David the person Jonathan was friends with, he would have altered the fundamentals of who David was, which would have therefore changed the friendship.
In the case of Abraham and God, Abraham was the one to walk away from the trust he had in God and his faith that God would care for him. He did so quite a few times, such as when he traveled through Egypt and lied about Sarai being his wife. He thought God couldn’t protect him from Pharaoh’s attempts to kill him if Pharaoh discovered Sarai was his wife and not his sister. This resulted in Pharaoh unknowingly taking Sarai into his harem. God stepped in, but Abraham’s behavior nearly cost him his wife and certainly caused an issue with his relationship with God that he had to rectify.
In the case of Naomi and Ruth, Ruth had the option to walk away, but she wouldn’t because she felt more kinship with Naomi’s values than with those of her own family by the time that Naomi’s husband and sons (one of whom was Ruth’s husband) passed and left them in the bind the book of Ruth opens with. Not so with Ruth’s sister, as she returned when Ruth stayed and entreated Naomi not to try to send her away. If she were not responding to something of value that she saw in Naomi and in that friendship, she would not have gone with Naomi to a foreign land. She would have left like her sister.
None of these relationships were without difficulty to surmount, but the elements of each are actually similar in nearly every point. All of them required certain elements to be the sort of friendship that benefited both people.
So What Makes a Friendship, Anyway?
Knowing now what the Bible has to say about the relationships that most reflect the modern sort of friendship, how do we use that to understand what makes a friendship a friendship? The starting point is the underlying philosophy that has to be there to build everything else. Before any of us can respect or love another person, we have to first have something to base both on. We may be able to love fellow Christians in a general sense (we’d be there to help them if we could, we’ll pray for them regardless of how we may personally feel about them, and we are kind and forgiving whether we like or trust them). But the sort of love we observe in the three examples above are in response to something. Further, if we examine in Proverbs the points where it talks about the sort of wise man we want to be and befriend, Proverbs often says that the wise man loves certain kinds of men and then directly links that love to what that type of man will do (rebuke where needed, for example, or honesty).
First Ingredient of Friendship: Values
If we were to simplify it, the something that a friend is responding to in loving another friend must be values. But in order to respond favorably to a value, we must first hold that value as valuable. If we find honesty to be valuable to us as individuals, we would also value it in others. If we are the type of person whose values dictate that they must tell the truth in love no matter how painful it will be to them or what it might cost us, then we will respond to seeing that value in others favorably! What I’m trying to drive home here is that the reason we are drawn to the people we befriend is because of a fundamental reaction or response to the particular expression of our values that we see in that individual. This is why a true friend is not going to seek to change the fundamental values you hold. They won’t because it is those things that they like or value about you. If you lost them or were revealed never to have had them, you would no longer be appealing as a friend.
This is why so many friends “drift” apart. They do so because of one of two things. Either a) one friend’s fundamentals changed enough that they are no longer the same in values as they were and are therefore not at all able to walk in sync with their former friend or b) one friend reveals somewhere along the road that their values were never what the other friend presumed. To make this clearer, I’ll share some personal examples. No names here because who these people were is not the point. The point is why the friendships dissolved.
Scenario 1: When I was in high school, I did dual credit at my local community college. I was, emotionally and mentally, not in a good place. The friends I gravitated toward were those whose values mirrored what I wanted for myself. They were kind, accepting, and non-judgmental. But they were not fellow Christians, and their philosophies and ideals were in many cases wholly opposite from what I had been taught. At the time, I had no one at my church that I was able to connect with because most or all of them held values that repulsed me such as a holier-than-thou attitude (pride) and rejection of anyone who couldn’t fit their mold. I didn’t know yet who I was becoming or what I would be, but I knew it wasn’t that, so I avoided them. My friends, therefore, reflected my values at the time. I’m not in contact with any of them anymore. It isn’t because we had a big argument or falling out. It’s because when I went away to college and returned, we met up, and my values had changed. They sensed that, and they never asked to hang out again. I also recognized it and didn’t have any desire to be around them because, while I didn’t think they were awful people, I didn’t see in them the reflection of my values anymore and could not, therefore, relate on that level.
Scenario 2: When I was away at college, I became best friends with a guy there. He was, once again, at the time, the embodiment of the things I valued. This time, I valued those who were willing to listen, take charge, and care. I valued those who would be honest with me even if it hurt to hear the truth because I had come to value reason and reality much more than I previously had. We recently parted ways. In this instance, though, what happened was a change in both of us. He began to shift away from the things I valued about him in the beginning–and in some instances revealed that he was never really a reflection of some of the values I held–and I also, as was the case in the first scenario, grown and matured to a degree that resulted in different values or a maturation of previously held ones. The changes in this case did lead to a rather painful parting because two of the core value differences were sacrifice/living for the sake of others and honesty. Despite that, I can say honestly that he also wasn’t a bad person. For a time, iron did sharpen iron, and he did comport himself with qualities and characteristics that indicated a certain degree of wisdom. The problem was that he chose to stop growing and to stand still then slide backwards on those values while I chose to keep going forward with them. This led to a difference in values and philosophy so vast we were not able to keep walking the same path or bridge the gap created.
Scenario 3: This happened right around the same time that scenario 2 was coming to an end. In this case, it was entirely a case of my not seeing that the other person didn’t share my values. This was a result of maintaining a purely online relationship based on utility (what we needed from each other, not values). The friend and I never really discussed anything outside that utilitarian side of the friendship that would indicate deeper value similarities or differences for the first few years, and we didn’t interact enough for me to really understand their values. But in the last year, we began interacting much more and doing so revealed that the individual didn’t share the same values on loving but honest communication, not causing strife and division, individuality versus reliance on others, sacrifice, or the expectation that others give and give even when receiving nothing in return. Given that the relationship was purely online, perhaps the individual would have shown other characteristics in person that could have balanced out those differences. But I never saw them, and in the end, this individual’s constant demands, search for validation and meaning in others, and demand that I sacrifice my stance on the issues I had laid out to please them forced me to put my foot down far more harshly than I would have liked to. The relationship ended with a fight over values, refusal on the friend’s part to accept that I wanted to back off even though I’d forgiven them, and my decision to block their messages so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the constant demands that my forgiveness take the form of being closer than ever before. The individual’s values stated that forgiveness and trust were equal, and mine did not. This forced our paths apart even further than the other value differences had, and it resulted in an abrupt end to the friendship. Again, I want to stress that, for others, this friend would have been able to help them grow and would fit well.
Please understand this… It isn’t that any of these people were horrible, despicable people however I may feel about their values personally. I’ve had friends who truly were and had abysmal character, a fact that I sadly had to discover the hard way, but in most cases, even in ones where the parting hurt me emotionally, they weren’t really bad people. But their values meant that we could no longer walk side by side closely. If any of my Christian friends from these examples asked for prayer, I would gladly grant that request. If they actually had a need I could meet, again, within reason, I’d be willing. But what I could not do was remain friends in the sense that most people think of it because there was no love I could muster for what and who they fundamentally were by the end. In some cases, all I could feel was loathing, as a matter of fact, for the values that made them what they were.
Second Ingredient of Friendship: Individuality or Personality
At this point, you may be wondering, well, wait a minute… I have values, but why don’t I find any desire to be friends with some people who share all my values on paper while I share a really close affinity with others who also share those values on paper? What makes the difference? Individuality is most often the leading cause when we assume that the individual in discussion truly does share those values. Both who we are as an individual and who they are as an individual come into play. Just because they share our values and respond favorably to our particular blend and manifestation of those values does not mean that the way they act based on those values and their individual expression of them will be well-suited. Sharing the same beliefs cannot surmount or remove the personal aspect. Two people can share the same beliefs and still be wholly different in terms of how they express and act on those values. So we need to understand that a strong and valuable friendship is going to require us to both have a decent grounding in who we are and what we value but will also require them to have a strong sense of individuality that causes them to manifest their values in a way we find attractive. It’s a two way street here. Both people must be their own individuals and able to stand on their own values as individuals before they can respond to values in others, but then both people must also find the particular expression of shared values in the other attractive. If they don’t, the friendship is simply going to dissolve just as it would with a person who has wholly different values. Both values and individuality must come into play.
Third Ingredient: Character
Finally, we come to character. This is closely tied to values, but usually our character is something built on our values. It is, in a way, the visible manifestation of our values through action. Individuality will determine what those actions may look like in particular, but that isn’t quite the same as character. Let’s just take an example to illustrate:
One of my values is honesty. Now, my personality and sense of individuality means that I manifest that honesty through a blend of straightforwardness and gentleness. Valuing honesty does not demand that I am gentle in being honest, but the combination of my own individuality and character does demand it. However, while my individuality dictates that generally I will be honest in as kind a way I can, my character demands that I am honest even if there is no way to be “kind” about it in the other person’s eyes. This means that, if given no other option, my individuality would shrug and say “I tried, guess I don’t need to do anything else.” But my character would demand “No, honesty requires that you make sure you have communicated the truth regardless of whether it seems harsh or not.” Character is what will dictate your actions in the face of difficulty. Individuality or personality is what dictates your behavior in normal circumstances. Both center on your values, but they do not always result in the same actions.
So as important as it is that the personality of the friend blends with their values in an attractive way, it is equally important to know their underlying character. It is intricately tied to their values, more so than individual personality is, because character is built not a natural thing you start out with or develop effortlessly. I’m a talkative person. That’s individuality. I didn’t have to work at it to become talkative; I just am. But being willing to stand up for the truth even when the person I’m sharing it with chooses to spit in my face, call me names, deny reality, or do any number of other negative things in response? That is something that is a part of my character because I had to work at having the courage needed to do that. My response naturally would be to walk away without bothering if I know the person will react poorly no matter how nice I am. My response based on my character is to lovingly confront because of my values. Hopefully this makes sense.
If we look at the examples from earlier in our discussion on Scriptural examples of friends, we notice that the character of these friendships included loyalty, honesty, genuine interest in the benefit of the other person, trust, and respect. Loyalty, honesty, an interest in the benefit of a friend, and respect are all responses based on the character of the friend and the values that built that character. The sort of company you keep speaks loudly to your character. It also is an indication of what you will become, because as Paul wrote in Corinthians, bad company corrupts good character. Your character is as important as that of the friends that you choose. Choose carefully based on the character and the values they will reveal, and then be honest with yourself about the sort of character you have because if you aren’t and you yourself have bad character, you may end up being the one to lead astray. You are as much a part of this equation as the other person, which is why a solid grounding in your own individuality and values is so key. You cannot value anything in others without first establishing who you are in relation to your own values, and you cannot love another as yourself if you do not know what “yourself” is to begin with. If you define yourself only in relation to others’ values and others’ standards, it is quite unlikely you will be doing any sharpening in the friendship except by luck. So don’t forget that who you are and your character should also be a part of your focus.
Knowing When to Walk Away
One of the toughest things about friendship, especially within a church, is knowing when it’s okay to walk away. There are a few clear instances where this needs to happen, one of which is church discipline. But aside from that, the most clear cases where you need to walk away involve the character qualities and behavioral patterns that Proverbs and other Scriptures say to avoid. If we discover that the person we are friends with is constantly starting fights, dividing friends and brothers/sisters in Christ, creating divisions in the church, gossiping, backbiting, or choosing sin over what is right, those are grounds to remove your friendship and to limit association. Now, it doesn’t mean you refuse to forgive these people for any wrongs these character and value flaws create. But these are grounds for walking away. Then there’s one other point we need to cover that is a serious indication you ought to consider walking away:
Equating Trust with Forgiveness and Demands that Both Be Granted
The one thing most Christians seem to constantly get wrong is that forgiveness does not equal trust! They are two different things. We ought to be willing to forgive anything because we are instructed not to harbor bitterness. Making things right by extending forgiveness to the one who wronged you, however, does not mean you are going to trust them after they have breached your trust. They have to earn that back because trust is not something God has mandated we offer freely. Instead, it is something they have to earn back.
Often, I hear this from people: “You aren’t forgiving me.” When asked why, the response can be reduced to: “Because you don’t want to stay friends or you won’t just go back to the way things were before I did whatever upset you.” This indicates that the person equates forgiveness with trusting them the way you did previously. Forgiveness means you don’t hold grudges, you don’t bring up the fault over and over, you don’t seek revenge or retaliate, and you don’t become angry or bitter about it. You let go. But it does not mean that you forget an established behavioral pattern or character flaw. It doesn’t always even mean a second chance to repeat the offense. Let me give an extreme example to help you understand how absurd the logic underlying these statements is.
Lets just say I discover a friend of mine has been stealing things from my house. They aren’t taking anything too major, but it is a breach of trust. Now, I tell this friend that I am willing to forgive it. I’m not going to bring it up all the time or hold a grudge over it. I’m not going to take them to court over it or press charges. In fact, I’m willing to still maintain a relationship with them so long as they don’t continue doing this stuff and force me to distance myself so I don’t risk also ending up in trouble with the law at some point. But because this has been happening consistently, I am not going to allow them to come over to visit and meets are going to be less frequent. So they won’t entirely lose my friendship, but I’m placing boundaries on how far I will trust them as a consequence of their freely chosen actions. No one made that person steal from me. No one forced them to do what they knew was wrong and knew, if I found out, would result in a loss of trust. Now, if that friend turns around and says “You’re not forgiving me because you won’t give me back the trust I lost by letting me come over and being my best friend,” would anyone find that reasonable or logical? No! They’d probably figure the wronged friend ought to drop the thief like a hot potato because of how ungrateful and audacious that statement is. So why is it that when a friend breaches trust by lying, abusing generosity, repeatedly refusing to be considerate of the other’s feelings, consistently demanding the other’s validation and approval even when they are in the wrong, or any number of other things we say that the wronged friend isn’t really forgiving if they don’t also give the one who did the repeated wrong a free pass to keep screwing it up? It’s no more logical than the thief who demands that their formerly close friend allow them the opportunity to repeat the already repeated offensive behavior.
The point is this: if you are the friend who has been wronged repeatedly–whether you’ve mentioned it and been ignored or are confronting the behavioral pattern for the first time and are being ignored, belittled, and further mistreated for your honesty–do not feel that you cannot walk away because “forgiveness” means everything keeps going on as it was. It doesn’t. Even if forgiveness does demand of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ that they are still willing to aid and pray for the one who did the wrong and treat them with kindness, respect, and generosity; it does not demand that you remain friends in the sense that it is usually used, nor does it mean you must be close. It means you let go of any anger, feelings of being wounded, or bitterness over what happened and move on. But moving on does not mean that nothing will change because of the actions that the other person chose to take.
Just as you would not give a thief repeated opportunities to rob you, you should not feel you are required to give a man who has demonstrated his fundamental values include things like violence, emotional and physical abuse, manipulation or cunning, constant need for affirmation and validation from others, lying, reckless disregard for others, arrogance, and foolishness the chance to continue harming you through close association as a result of his behaviors and character flaws. That is not a sacrifice anyone has the right to demand, nor is it one that has been commanded of us. This doesn’t mean that you might not, as an individual, decide to give another chance alongside your forgiveness. God may lead you to do that. But if, in praying about the situation and looking at it honestly, rationally, and clearly, you still choose to walk away from the friendship, you are not doing anything wrong.
If they are demanding it and refuse to accept that trust isn’t automatically restored when they are forgiven, that is further proof that they couldn’t care less about your health, safety, or trust in them. They should lose all respect and trust you have for them the moment that they respond that way because they are telling you one very important thing about themselves: they believe they have the right to assert their will over yours and to justify their use of manipulation or force to do it with a perverted view of Scripture (or just of vocabulary in general). That is never the kind of person you want to be friends with because they lack even a basic respect for others’ right to live independent of their wishes and desires and may, in many cases, even view it as a moral ill or evil for someone to refuse to do what they have demanded as “forgiveness”. Do not associate with this sort of person on the close level of friendship. Their behavior is nothing but arrogance and pride by way of believing that they as a flawed individual know what is best for another individual regardless of all evidence to the contrary. They may not understand that it is pride or arrogance. But blindness to the sin doesn’t make it any less capable of directing their actions. The sort of person who is willing to say to you “I know we should be this or that because God told me so” is really telling you “I think this is what you ought to do because it’s what I want, but I know you believe in God, so I think if I bring that into the equation, you’ll feel you have no right to tell me no.” Seriously, I have dealt with several individuals who have said this sort of thing. It always, always boiled down to the sort of delusional pride that made them believe their wants equated to God’s for my life or that their wants trumped my acting in a manner I believed to be consistent with God’s desire and my own conscience.
If you are dealing with this kind of person, believe them when they first reveal who they are. If they’re honest enough to say that sort of crap, believe them. Don’t give them a second chance. Don’t risk your mental and, potentially, physical safety on it. Unless they can point to a passage that very obviously commands you to do the thing they are saying you have no right to refuse them, they are not rebuking you for acting against God’s clearly stated will; they are manipulating you. There is a huge difference in the way a wise man providing a rebuke will approach you and the way a person deluded by pride will approach you. One approaches you not with the mind to force you to do as they have advised but with a spirit of humility that presents you with the truth and a plea to change. The other demands of you what they have no right to demand. If that’s what you’re seeing, run the other way no matter what they say or do. They do not have a proper view of reality or of their fellow man as an individual who answers to God–not to them–and, in some circumstances, may even be delusional about themselves and their relationship to you or others. It doesn’t mean you ought to be unnecessarily harsh. It doesn’t call for being rude, crude, or violent in response. That would be no better than their behavior. But it does mean that you forgive in the true sense of the word and then cut ties to whatever extent makes the most sense in the situation and based upon the other circumstances that revealed their philosophy regarding forgiveness and trust.
This is never an easy area, especially when the circumstances leading up to it involve painful breaches of trust. It isn’t easy to go through a sudden severing of trust and intimacy. It’s always easier when the scenario is like the first personal example I gave where both parties just subconsciously (or even consciously) acknowledge they’re no longer well suited to be friends and drift with no hard feelings. If there does have to be a severing of ties, pain can’t usually be avoided, but it’s always best when you are able to talk it out with the other person, explain why you no longer wish to be in close contact, and make clear that you are not parting with ill-will toward them in spite of whatever has happened. Failing that, the only choice you may be left with is to make clear that you forgive them but will not associate with them and cut ties in whatever way necessary. This is usually only needed in extreme circumstances, but remember that whatever ends up being necessary, the goal is forgiveness and reconciliation, not necessarily a restoration of the former intimacy or trust that the two held. That would be ideal, but restoration of that trust would require both individuals, and if the one who did the wrong has made it clear they will not change and see no reason or need to, they shouldn’t expect to be granted that trust ever again.
Conclusion
With all of this said, as individuals, we should be striving to find friends that model our values and the values upheld in Proverbs and other areas of Scripture, but we also need to strive to be that sort of person ourselves if we want to attract the kind of friend we want. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. You want a Godly friend with similar values? Then you need to know what you value and be Godly yourself. There’s no way around it. Either you will consciously ensure that you are the image of the sort of person you want to attract and then consciously find those who mirror those values or you will subconsciously adopt values (which may or may not be good ones) from everyone around you and become like whichever people you subconsciously gravitated towards. It isn’t a good formula to go by, especially if the sort of person you fall in with happens to have seriously harmful values. One way or another, you will mirror your friends, and your friends will mirror you. This is not an area of life any of us can afford to be lax in if we want to continuously grow and become a better individuals morally, mentally, or spiritually.
