Study Companion
Ask
Browse
Listen
＋
Install
←
Back
Podcast
Friendship
Open original on relationalconcepts.org ↗
Your browser does not support audio.
↺ Start from beginning
0% listened
Transcript
0:00
Hi, I'm Dave DeWitt, and today I'd like to talk about what the Bible says about friendship.
0:09
First a definition. Friendship is an internal, subjective state of affection rooted in receiving
0:19
a benefit from an external attachment, or more simply, friendship is personal affection.
0:27
Unfortunately, in many contexts this would be labeled love because the word love is such a
0:34
broad word it's almost meaningless. At least six words in the Bible can be translated love.
0:40
Here I'll restrict the use of the word love for agape. A more accurate word to describe all forms
0:49
of friendship is affection. The only difference between the word affection and the word friendship
0:56
is that friendship is a personal decision to have an affection. Affection is a state of mind
1:05
whereby an external stimulus creates an internal fondness for something or someone. Friendship
1:14
happens when a person decides that a mental attachment to an external stimulus is beneficial,
1:22
thus opening a world of personal fondness, which seems to be almost miraculously created
1:29
when there is nothing there before. Friendship, therefore, is not objective. It's not centered in
1:37
the object of the affection, but subjectively centered in the one having the affection.
1:43
Having the affection, it should be stated from the onset that the
1:49
biblical concept of friendship differs from the secular one in three basic ways.
1:56
As I go through these three, think about the written word of God as an example.
2:03
Biblical friendship, number one, is not always mutual. Two, can involve things as well as people.
2:12
And three, includes a personal decision. In other words, it doesn't just happen to us.
2:20
The trigger for the friendship may just happen, but the friendship includes a personal decision
2:27
about what triggers awakening in us and therefore creates responsibility.
2:34
A personal example. When I was 14 years old, I flew with my mother to visit my grandparents in
2:40
Florida. As soon as the old DC-3 left the ground, I told myself, this is what I want to do. When I
2:48
got home, I started taking flying lessons, and I've been flying ever since. The external stimulus
2:55
of that first flight triggered in me an affection, which I was completely unaware of.
3:02
And opened a world which was never there before. I've been flying ever since.
3:10
My friendship is with a thing, a machine, not a person. If you say that, well, it's not friendship,
3:19
then you need to create another word for it, but it fits friendship.
3:23
Now I want to think about seven attributes of biblical friendship. Number one, friendship is
3:30
not the same as fellowship or love. Fellowship is mutual sharing. It's all about reciprocation.
3:41
Either it's giving, expecting a response, or responding to something given. But fellowship
3:47
should never be the foundation of Christian relationship. Christian relationships should
3:53
always be built on the foundation of agape love. Now love, that is agape love, is very different
4:01
from fellowship. Love is giving without an expectation of reciprocation. John 3.16,
4:08
for God so loved the world that he gave. It has no expectation of a return.
4:15
Friendship, on the other hand, can go two ways, one way or no way at all. Friendship is an affection
4:25
which may either expect a return or not expect a return, or have a subjective return in itself.
4:33
And that's the major difference between biblical friendship and secular friendship.
4:38
The secular definition of friendship is always about a relationship of mutual affection between
4:43
two or more people, at least according to Wikipedia. That concept of fellowship is also
4:51
in the Bible. But the Bible recognizes a friendship that secular world does not, or at least a world
4:58
would use a different word for it. Biblical friendship includes those who do not or cannot
5:05
reciprocate. For example, suppose I become enamored with C.S. Lewis. After reading and
5:14
rereading many of his books, I might develop an affection for C.S. Lewis. This is not fellowship,
5:20
since there's no sharing going on. This is not love, because I can do nothing for C.S. Lewis.
5:26
He's been dead for many years. Nonetheless, I can develop an affection for him from just reading his
5:32
work. You can be having fellowship and love without having friendship. Just because you are
5:39
having fellowship with others, or giving to others, does not mean that you have friendship.
5:47
Second thing is friendship is subjective. We are creatures that feel. Humans are beings with
5:55
feelings. Friendship is a subjective decision based on those feelings. The core of friendship
6:02
is affection. Notice the assumption of affection in Jesus' friendship with Lazarus.
6:08
So the sisters went and sent word to him saying, Lord behold he, referring to Lazarus, whom you
6:16
love, it's the word for phileo or affection, is sick. When they went to the tomb, Jesus wept.
6:25
So the Jews were saying, see how he loved them. It's the word for affection for him. All human
6:32
beings tend to develop friendship affections. So don't consider it unusual or odd when you find
6:40
yourself attracted to some person, thing, or idea, and not others. But that internal subjective
6:47
aspect of our nature is, like everything else in our nature, perverted by the fall of Genesis 3.
6:55
So friendships are inevitable, but not necessarily right, and not necessarily wrong.
7:04
So let's think a little bit more about that. Number three, friendships with others may be
7:10
good or bad. From Matthew 10, 37. He who loves, here the word is affection, phileo,
7:20
has an affection for, father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves,
7:26
same word affection, son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
7:32
Neither fellowship, friendship, nor love are necessarily safe. Any of them may focus outside
7:40
the biblical mandates. As Jesus stated, even friendship within the family can be bad if
7:46
they become more significant than our friendship with God. But friendship has a unique danger,
7:54
which comes from its unique assets. Our capacity for affection creates things like romance,
8:02
respect, trust, and worship that might not involve anyone but ourselves. This is potentially
8:10
dangerous, for example, in the area of worship. We can love God and we can have a fellowship with
8:18
God because he's alive and involved in our lives. We can also have friendship affection for God.
8:26
The danger is that we can also have friendship with a God we create in our own mind.
8:31
The existence of friendship does not require fellowship with a true God.
8:37
Jesus quoted Isaiah's statement, these people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
8:45
To create a God in our own mind to have affection for and hence worship, the God we have created
8:53
is a form of idolatry. We've all heard of things like, well, my God wouldn't want me to be happy.
9:00
My God does not judge people. My God would do or not do this and so. It implies worshiping a God
9:07
I've created with my own mind. The focus of my affection is not two-way fellowship or one-way
9:14
love, but no way at all. It's friendship. It begins and ends in me, myself, in which case
9:23
the actual God is not part of the affection for the God I've created in my own mind. So it's
9:30
crucial that the God we worship is the one revealed in the Bible, not one we conjure up in our own
9:37
affections. Fourth thing I'll talk about, friendships with things and ideas may be good or bad.
9:46
Friendship may be accompanied by giving or reciprocation, but it's not defined by either one.
9:55
It's different from the other two basic elements of a relationship in that we can have a legitimate
10:03
healthy affection for things or ideas like the Word of God, the character of God, good sound
10:09
teaching that we cannot reciprocate. Whereas love for things and ideas is always wrong,
10:18
friendship for things and ideas may be either good or bad depending on the thing or idea.
10:27
Here's some examples of good friendship with things or ideas. Using one of the words for
10:35
friendship, the psalmist wrote, how blessed is the man that delights in the law of the Lord.
10:44
Oh, how I love your law. He loves, it's the word for affection, the righteousness and justice.
10:54
Whoever loves, it's the word for affection, disciplines love, has knowledge, but he who
11:01
hates reproof is stupid. It's in Proverbs 12.1. Here's my fifth thing. Friendship is selective
11:09
and therefore potentially offensive. One of the observations we can make about friendship is that
11:16
it's always selected someone or something over someone or something else. Even affection for
11:22
things or ideas will tend to crowd out affection for other things or ideas. For example, I like
11:29
flying and I like working with my tractor, but my airplane will always take precedent over my
11:36
tractor. Affection for biblical theology will eliminate a desire for Islamic theology.
11:43
This selectivity is clear when it comes to people. Solomon said, a man of too many friends comes to
11:51
ruin, but there's a friend who sticks closer than a brother. To be a friend of everyone is to have
11:58
no friends at all. Number six, friendship endures adversity, but may also create adversity.
12:10
There's three ways adversity is connected to friendship. First of all, a friend may
12:16
endure the circumstantial adversity which comes into your life with you. A friend loves
12:25
at all times and a brother is born of adversity. That's in Proverbs 17. The second thing is it also
12:34
possible that a friend may create the adversity because his or her affection senses a need for
12:41
your beneficial correction. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, one who has affection for you.
12:50
Deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. The third thing is it also possible that friendship will
12:57
create adversity with others who will hate you for having the friendship. Jesus told his disciples
13:03
the world would hate them in the same way that the world hated him.
13:09
All right, now my seventh point, friendship channels our activities.
13:17
John 15 5, he who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit.
13:24
Verses 13 and 14, greater love has no one than this that he laid down his life for his friends.
13:30
You're my friends, if you do it I command you.
13:33
In the upper room discourse just before his arrest, Jesus said,
13:42
this is my command that you love. Then here's the word agape, giving without reciprocity
13:48
to one another, just as I is loved. Again, it's agape, giving without reciprocity.
13:56
Greater love, same thing, giving, has no one than this that he laid down his life for his friends.
14:02
Here are the words phileo, those that you have an affection for. You're my friends, phileo,
14:10
those that he has an affection for, if you do it I command you. Jesus is giving as his basic
14:18
command the foundation of all Christian interaction, and that's agape love, not friendship.
14:26
But then he applies this agape love with phileo, phileos, friendship,
14:33
where to give one another, expecting nothing in return, just as Jesus gave to us in John 3 16,
14:42
in regards to the world that he gave. But the greatest way to do that is to lay down our lives
14:49
for those who Jesus chose to have an affection for. Jesus laid out his life as a propitiation,
14:57
1 John 2 2, which is a satisfaction, God satisfied with his payment for the sins of the world.
15:05
But it was only a justification for his friends, those who he chose to have an affection for.
15:12
The love which is Jesus' commandment for his disciples does not lay down its life for the
15:18
earth, the environment, or even the people of the world. It gives agape love to his phileo friends.
15:28
The last point I want to make is that romance is a form of friendship.
15:33
Romance is the connection between our physical sex drive and our spiritual nature,
15:40
our personality, and our spirituality. Romance is not just a sex drive. Animals have a sex drive,
15:47
but not romance. The sex drive is just physical. Romance requires a personal decision.
15:57
Sex disconnected from our spiritual nature is not romance. Actually, physical sex tends to
16:05
destroy romance. Romance is designed to get us married. It'll continue or increase as long as
16:13
the sex drive and our spiritual nature are connected. When physical sex occurs, it disconnects
16:20
the two, and romance begins to decline. As that happens in marriage, it's time for agape love,
16:29
a giving without expecting anything in return, to begin to dominate and replace the friendship
16:35
affection called romance. Romance is designed to get us married, but the pursuit of romance
16:42
as a goal of marriage will destroy marriage. When physical sex occurs before marriage,
16:50
romance begins to decline before marriage. Then marriage becomes increasingly just a logistical
16:58
contract. Romance is clearly not the same as agape love. Love is giving without expectation
17:05
of reciprocity, and although it can be only an internal subjective decision,
17:13
romance always hopes for reciprocity. Romance is clearly not the same as fellowship,
17:20
because fellowship is mutual, mutual sharing. Romance might or might not be mutual
17:26
or shared. Romance is not necessarily giving or sharing. It's about getting or, at best, swapping.
17:35
Of the three basic elements of relationship, romance is a kind of friendship,
17:42
so it includes the seven aspects of friendship we discussed. It's an internal affection.
17:50
This does the same as fellowship and love. It can be good or bad. It can be good or bad idea.
17:59
It's selective. It endures and creates adversity, and it channels our activity.
18:07
Well, thanks for listening. If you're interested in doing more studying on the subject of friendship,
18:12
there's a longer paper with more references available on our website relationalconcepts.org.
