What Makes a True Pal?

Audio Transcript

What makes for a greatest good friend? That’s the query from one listener at present, a good friend of ours. “Pastor John, I used to be just lately requested by a good friend of mine to clarify your theology of friendship. I’ll say what I mentioned and see if I acquired it proper or mistaken. Right here’s my abstract, and I’ll allow you to approve or disapprove or right this after which substantiate it as you please. Okay. I mentioned this. First, on this universe, Christ is of biggest value. There’s no higher attainment in life or in demise than to know and to like him. Meaning — he means — the worth of our friendships is set by how a lot of Christ we see in an individual and the way intently we are able to work to share Christ to the world by that relationship.

“So, a non-Christian good friend, all about themselves, their very own self-image and success, is a useless finish. There’s nothing of Christ being magnified in them to us or to the world. We get nothing of Christ in them, and we can not associate to indicate Christ to the world. So, a friendship with a non-Christian is of lesser worth, past us in search of to be Christ to them — which itself is essential. Nonetheless, true Christian buddies, our greatest buddies, these whose lives are all about Christ and residing for his glory, are a method of us seeing Christ and receiving his grace. And with such buddies, we take part collectively to indicate the price of Christ to the world, which is the very best worth and delight friendship can ever attain or expertise.

“This raises the bar on all our friendships, even the friendship now we have with our partner too. Christ provides {our relationships} value — reflecting him to at least one one other and sharing him collectively. Pastor John, what do I get proper? What do I get mistaken?”

Nicely, that’s fairly weighty and wonderful. And sure, I feel I might affirm that imaginative and prescient as important to friendship and the way in which I might take into consideration friendship. So, I’m pleased with what he mentioned there. It’d make clear the extra relational nature of friendships — or the nitty-gritty, sensible dimension of friendships — if we begin not with the good, final values (which he did and I’m superb with; I like it), but additionally you possibly can come at it with the nitty-gritty statements about friendship within the Bible. So, let’s attempt that. Let’s see what occurs if we put collectively these two approaches, one from the underside up and one from the highest down.

Mates and Neighbors

Right here’s one exceptional factor in regards to the phrase “good friend” within the Previous Testomony, for instance. There may be one Hebrew phrase, re’ah, behind virtually all of the makes use of of the phrase “neighbor” and the phrase “good friend.” It’s the identical Hebrew phrase behind each. About eighty occasions, the phrase re’ah is translated “neighbor,” and about thirty occasions that very same phrase is translated “good friend,” and solely a tiny handful of different Hebrew phrases are translated “neighbor” or “good friend.”

“Friendship is essential for us in life and ministry.”

Now, one of many implications of that is that the Jewish individuals who spoke this Hebrew language didn’t have a peculiar phrase that they used for good friend — that’s wonderful — the way in which we do and the way in which the New Testomony does. We’ll get there in only a minute. The phrase they used most frequently for “good friend,” virtually all the time, was the identical generic phrase used for “neighbor.”

One dictionary defines re’ah as “these individuals with whom one is introduced into contact, with whom one should dwell on account of circumstances of life.” Nicely, good grief, that’s about as basic as you could possibly get. So, the generic phrase re’ah covers those that are ethnically close to you or geographically close to you or vocationally close to you or close to you due to some frequent curiosity. It’s very broad. So, our understanding of friendship because it emerges from the Previous Testomony just isn’t based mostly on the which means of a specific phrase however reasonably on the character of the connection in numerous conditions.

Nearer Than a Neighbor

Listed below are some examples, as a result of there actually is a imaginative and prescient of friendship within the Previous Testomony, however not due to a peculiar phrase.

“Oil and fragrance make the center glad, and the sweetness of a good friend comes from his earnest counsel” (Proverbs 27:9). So, clearly, the fact of friendship as a detailed relationship of belief and helpfulness is there. It actually existed. Or Proverbs 27:6: “Trustworthy are the injuries of a good friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” So right here, there’s a transparent distinction between somebody who’s close to and hostile and somebody who’s close to and pleasant. So, “good friend” is somebody who’s not solely close to you, however for you. Or Proverbs 18:24: “A person of many companions might come to smash, however there’s a good friend who sticks nearer than a brother.” So right here, “good friend” is nearer than many companions, however not a organic brother, but much more dedicated to you than a brother. And Proverbs 17:17: “A good friend loves always, and a brother is born for adversity.”

So, it’s clear, I feel, that regardless that there isn’t any peculiar phrase for “good friend” as distinct from “neighbor” within the Previous Testomony, the fact of a detailed, deep, sturdy bonding is clearly current within the Previous Testomony: earnest counsel, sweetness of camaraderie, devoted wounds, no enmity, nearer than a brother, trusted to be there within the worst of occasions.

And like our good friend mentioned (who despatched on this query), in a God-besotted tradition — like Previous Testomony Judaism was at its greatest — this earnest counsel, candy camaraderie, devoted wounds, brotherly closeness, fidelity within the worst of occasions, all of that is within the service of figuring out and trusting and having fun with and obeying the greatness of God. If a good friend started to take us away from devotion to God, he would by definition cross from being a good friend to being an enemy.

One Who Loves

Now, right here’s what’s exceptional once we flip to the New Testomony. We simply learn in Proverbs 17:17, “A good friend loves always.” Now, in contrast to the Hebrew of the Previous Testomony, the Greek of the New Testomony doesn’t deal with “neighbor” and “good friend” with the identical phrase. It separates “good friend” and “neighbor” into two phrases. “Neighbor” picks up on the thought of nearness. That’s what plēsion means, primarily, when it’s translated “neighbor” (and that’s the phrase for “neighbor” within the New Testomony), “the one who’s close to.”

And “good friend” picks up on the thought of affection. “A good friend loves always.” About 30 of the 36 makes use of of the English phrase “good friend” within the English New Testomony are a translation of philos. Philos is a phrase relating to like. We get Philadelphia: cohesion, metropolis of cohesion. We get philosophy: love of knowledge. Pal is rarely a translation of plēsion — “neighbor” or “the close to one.” It all the time is carrying this concept of “a good friend loves always.” So, the vocabulary of friendship within the New Testomony turns into much less geographical or spatial and extra affectional.

And right here’s a extremely vital illustration of that. In James 2:23, it says, “[Abraham] was referred to as a good friend of God.” However once you return to Isaiah 41:8 and a couple of Chronicles 20:7, that are the one two locations the place Abraham known as God’s good friend, in each texts, the phrase “good friend” just isn’t the phrase re’ah, however the participle of the phrase love, ’āhaḇ. “The one who loves God” is the literal translation which comes over into New Testomony Greek as “the good friend of God,” as a result of the phrase “good friend” carries such connotations of affection.

Essential Companions

So, the upshot of all that is to say that, along with that massive image that our good friend painted for me — capturing the massive, Godward notion of friendship — to that may be added now some particulars (put some flesh on the bones) by observing that friendship includes earnest counsel coming from one another, a sweetness of camaraderie, devoted wounds if mandatory, fidelity of being there for one another in the most effective and the worst of occasions.

A good friend is exclusive in not fairly being the identical as a brother or a sister, and never being fairly the identical as a partner, however being a — what ought to we are saying? — a comrade in a shared imaginative and prescient as you pull collectively for some vital trigger. And my assumption is that the significance of this sort of friendship is why Jesus all the time despatched out his emissaries — his apostles and employees — two by two, not by themselves, and why the apostle Paul all the time traveled and ministered in teams, in buddies. He was very keen to not be left alone wherever. In different phrases, this sort of friendship is essential for us in life and ministry.