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What Makes a True Friend? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Well, what makes for a best friend? That's the question from one listener
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  today, a friend of ours, pastor John, I was recently asked by
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  a friend of mine to explain your theology of friendship. I'll say what I
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  said and see if I got it right or wrong. Here's my summary,
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  and I'll let you approve or disapprove or correct this and then substantiate it as
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  you please. Okay, I said this first. In this universe, Christ
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  is of greatest worth. There's no greater attainment in life or in death than
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  to know and to love Him. That means He means. The value of
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  our friendships are determined by how much of Christ we see in a person and
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  how closely we can work to share Christ to the world through that relationship.
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  So a non Christian friend all about themselves, their own self image and success
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  is a dead end. There's nothing of Christ being magnified in them to us
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  or to the world. We get nothing of Christ in them, and we
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  cannot partner to show Christ to the world. So a friendship where a non
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  Christian is of lesser value beyond us seeking to be Christ to them, which
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  itself is important. However, true Christian friends are best friends, those whose
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  lives are all about Christ and living for His glory, are a means of
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  us seeing Christ and receiving his grace. And with such friends, we participate
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  together to show the worth of Christ to the world, which is the highest
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  value in delight friendship can ever attain or experience. This raises the bar on
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  all of our friendships, even the friendship we have with our spouse. To
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  Christ gives our relationships worth, reflecting Him to one another and sharing Him together.
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  Pastor John, what do I get right? What do I get wrong?
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  Well, that's pretty pretty weighty and amazing, And yes, I think
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  I could affirm that vision as essential to friendship and the way I would think
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  about friendship. So I'm happy with what he said there. It might shed
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  light on the more relational nature of friendships or nitty gritty practical dimension of friendships
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  if we start not with the great ultimate values, which he did, and
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  I'm fine with. I love it, but with also you can come at
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  it with the nitty gritty statements about friendship in the Bible. So let's try
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  that. Let's see what happens if we put together these two approaches, kind
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  of one from the bottom up and one from the top down. Here's one
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  remarkable thing about the word friend in the Old Testament. For example, there
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  is one Hebrew word real behind almost all the uses of the word neighbor and
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  the word friend, same Hebrew word behind both. About eighty times the word
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  rea is translated neighbor, and about thirty times that same word is translated friend,
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  and only a tiny handful of other Hebrew words are translated neighbor or friend.
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  Now, one of the implications of this is that the Jewish people who
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  spoke this Hebrew language did not have a peculiar word that they used for friend.
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  That's amazing the way we do and the way the New Testament does.
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  We'll get there in just a minute. The word they used most often for
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  friend almost always was the same generic word used for neighbor. One dictionary defines
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  rea as quote those persons with whom one is brought into contact with whom one
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  must live on account of circumstances of life. Well, that's good grief,
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  about as general as you could get. So the generic word raya covers those
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  who are ethnically near you, or geographically near you, or vocationally near you,
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  or near you because of some common interest is very broad. So our
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  understanding of friendship as it emerges from the Old Testament is not based on the
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  meaning of a particular word, but rather on the nature of the relationship in
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  different situations. Here's some examples, because there really is a vision of friendship
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  in the Old Testament, but not because of a peculiar word. Oil and
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  perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his
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  earnest counsel. That's Proverbs twenty seventy nine. So clearly the reality of friendship
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  as a close relationship of trust and helpfulness is there. It really existed,
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  or Proverbs twenty seven to six. Faithful are the wounds of a friend,
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  profuse are the kisses of an enemy. So here there's a clear difference between
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  someone who is near and hostile and someone who is near and friendly. So
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  friend is someone who's not only near you, but for you. Or Proverbs
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  eighteen twenty four. A man of many companions may come to ruin, but
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  there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. So here friend is
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  closer than many companions, but not a biological brother, yet even more committed
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  to you than a brother. And Proverbs seventeen seventeen, a friend loves at
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  all times, and a brother is born for adversity. So it's clear,
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  I think that even though there is no peculiar word for friend as distinct from
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  neighbor in the Old Testament, the reality of a close, deep, strong
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  bonding is clearly present in the Old Testament. Earnest counsel, sweetness of camaraderie,
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  faithful wounds, no enmity, closer than a brother trusted to be there
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  in the worst of times. And like our friend said, who sent in
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  this question? In a God besoughted culture, like the Old Testament, judaism
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  was at its best. This earnest counsel, sweet camaraderie, faithful wounds,
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  brotherly closeness, constancy in the worst of times. All of this is in
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  the service of knowing and trusting and enjoying and obeying the greatness of God.
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  If a friend began to take us away from devotion to God, he would
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  by definition, passed from being a friend to being an enemy. Now here's
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  what's remarkable. When we turn to the New Testament. We just read in
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  Proverbs seventeen seventeen, a friend loves at all times. Now, unlike the
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  Hebrew of the Old Testament. The Greek of the New Testament does not treat
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  neighbor and friend with the same word. It separates friend and neighbor into two
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  words. Neighbor picks up on the idea of nearness. That's what placeson means
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  essentially when it's translated neighbor, and that is the word for neighbor in the
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  New Testament, the one who is near, and friend picks up on the
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  idea of love. A friend loves at all times philos About thirty of the
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  thirty six uses of the English word friend in the English New Testament is a
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  translation of philos. Philos is a word relating to love. We get Philadelphia,
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  brotherly love, city of brotherly love. We get philosophy, a love
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  of wisdom. Friend is never a translation of place theyon, neighbor or the
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  near one. It always is carrying this idea of a friend loves at all
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  times. So the vocabulary of friendship in the New Testament becomes less geographical or
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  spatial and more affectional. And here's a really significant illustration of that. In
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  James two twenty three, Abraham was called a friend of God. But when
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  you go back to Isaiah forty one eight and Second Chronicles twenty seven, which
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  are the only two places where Abraham is called God's friend. In both texts,
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  the word friend is not the word rea, but the participle of the
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  word love ahave. The one who loves God is the literal translation, which
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  comes over into New Testament Greek as the friend of God, because the word
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  friend carries such connotations of love. So the upshot of all this is to
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  say that in addition to that big picture that our friend painted for me,
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  capturing the big God word, notion of friendship can be added now some details
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  put some flesh on the bones by observing that friendship involves earnest counsel coming from
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  each other, a sweetness of camaraderie, faithful wounds if necessary, constancy of
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  being there for each other in the best and the worst of times. A
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  friend is unique in not quite being the same as a brother or a sister,
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  and not being quite the same as a spouse, but being a what
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  should we say, a comrade in a shared vision, as you pulled together
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  for some significant cause. And my assumption is that the importance of this kind
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  of friendship is why Jesus always sent out his emissaries, his apostles, and
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  workers two by two, not by themselves. And why the Apostle Paul always
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  traveled and ministered in groups, in friends. He was very eager not to
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  be left alone anywhere. In other words, this kind of friendship is crucial
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  for us in life and ministry. Yeah, it really is. And if
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  you want to see how gospel mission and affection frames Christian friendship, see the
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  Apostle Paul's intro to the letter he wrote to the church in Philippi his friends
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  in Philippi. And you can do that by watching the Look at the Book
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  videos from Pastor John on Phlippians one, verses three to eleven. I just
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  watched all of those videos and it offers vivid detail and some really surprising details
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  on how Christian friendships are framed. I commend those to you. Start with
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  a video titled thank God for Gospel Friendships. Thank God for Gospel Friendships.
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  You can find that at Desire and Good dot org under the look at the
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  Book tab, or just go to YouTube and type in the title thank God
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  for Gospel Friendships. That's the first video on the section. Thank you Esther
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  John, and thanks for joining us today. If you have a question to
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  ask Pastor John, find the email link and our complete episode archive at askpastor
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  John dot com. Study that archive closely and you'll discover that has been almost
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  three years since our last episode on dating. Or back on the topic to
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  ask, can a single pastor date within his local church. I'm Tony Ranky.
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  We'll see you on Thursday.