Our men’s ministry at church recently launched a new initiative where men could sign up for groups based on age to get together every few weeks. A couple of Saturdays ago, I met a group of guys for breakfast. All of us are in our 50s, and I’ve known all of them for several years.
There wasn’t a heavy agenda for the breakfast; we just hung out together for about an hour and a half and prayed for each other. The point of the group was for guys to build godly male friendships.
Friendships are lacking in our world today, especially among men. I often think of the King’s X song “The Fine Art of Friendship,” which celebrates friends who “taught me right and wrong and black and white.” I have friends like that whom I can call on in good times and bad, but it doesn’t hurt to expand my circle.
“We have lost the gift and glory of friendship,” writes Paul Bankson at Tabletalk. “This is due to a number of factors. We’ve traded talking for texting. We’ve abandoned fellowship for Facebook. Social media has, in reality, become anything but… Men, in particular it seems, have lost the gift of friendship.”
We can learn a lot about friendship from the Bible. David and Jonathan’s friendship was an unbreakable bond (no matter how the world tries to twist that story). Ruth’s loyal friendship to her mother-in-law Naomi put her in the genealogy of David and Jesus. Jesus’ friendship with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus stood through good and bad times.
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Jesus’ words about friendship to His disciples — and by extension to us — in John 15:13-15 resonate: “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.”
Bankson writes:
Jesus says we are His friends so that we can understand a little better what it means to be in fellowship with Him. He shares with us the truth of the kingdom. To be Jesus’ friend is to be let into the eternal relationship of love within the triune Godhead. Ultimately, we are brought into this relationship by virtue of the fact that Jesus, our King, laid down His life for His friends. He died in the place of His people on the cross to be raised again on the third day.
Some of the best scriptures about friendship come from the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 18:24 tells us, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” As much as I love my family, there have been times when leaning on my friends helped me in times of crisis.
According to Proverbs 27:17, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” I can’t tell you how many times my friends have sharpened me spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and even physically. I find Proverbs 17:17 to contain deep truth about my cherished friends as well as my family: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”
Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” The wise things that friends tell us that might hurt our feelings at first are better than an enemy’s flattery. Just three verses later, Proverbs 27:9 tells us, “Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.” The kindness of friends always gladdens the heart.
Finally, Proverbs 13:20 reminds us, “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” It took me too many years to learn to gravitate toward the wise friends over the ones who do stupid stuff.
Bankson quotes C.S. Lewis: “Is any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a fire?” Maybe not, but I’ll take a circle of Christian friends over plates of biscuits and gravy, too.
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