[note: this was originally written as an article for the Socially Distanced Intellectuals, though it was never actually published. regardless, i've re-formatted it for this space, since it fits thematically and is very important to me.]
"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." - John 15:12-15
for the past several months, i’ve been thinking about what true friendship looks like, so i started a project: looking up all the times the Bible translates the word “friend,” and comparing the words originally used. i was hoping that i could get a better grasp on different types of friendship. in the end, it wasn’t quite as cut and dry as i’d hoped, as there are 13 different words that the ESV translates as “friend,” 52 times, and over a wide variety of contexts. you’ll be glad to hear that i’m not going to cite all 52 uses here. instead, i’ve been looking for overarching themes in them, as well as narrative examples that support them. obviously this is not going to be definitive or exhaustive, but there are three themes that stand out to me as being repeated over and over again: trustworthiness, kindness, and loyalty.
now, when i say trustworthiness, i do mean honesty, but in the broader sense, i mean that really good friends push one another toward growth. it’s not just speaking truth, but living a lifestyle of integrity to the truth which you profess. the Hebrew word for this kind of trustworthiness is
emet, the noun form of the verb
aman--to put one’s trust in.
emet often translates to the English words “faithfulness” or “truth.” Biblically, this often manifests in honesty, even--maybe especially--when it is unpleasant to hear. Proverbs 27 has a lot to say on friendship, including,
“Faithful [emet] are the wounds of a friend [ahab]; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” this isn’t referring to just any wound, but specifically a truth that is painful to hear. though it may hurt in the moment, telling a friend a difficult truth is best for them in the long run because it pushes them to grow. this word for friend,
ahab, is usually specifically used to indicate a friendship of affectionate love; so basically, if you truly love someone, you will push them toward truth. the opposite of this kind of loving friendship are the
“kisses of an enemy,” or, as it is put later in the same chapter,
“words of a flatterer,” indicating that an enemy may tell someone only what they want to hear in order to garner that person’s favor. telling hard truths is, ultimately, a selfless act because it seeks the other person’s good at the potential risk of being misunderstood or seen in a poor light.
this same proverb goes on to affirm that “oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend [rea] is in his earnest counsel.” rea is the most common word for friend in the Old Testament, and is used pretty generally; it can mean anything from neighbor to intimate friend. so basically, it’s just as general as our word for a friend. but the testing of such a relationship is in whether a person provides trustworthy counsel. love does not simply tell a friend what they want to hear; it pushes a friend toward the God of truth. of course hard truths will be difficult to receive! but such counsel can be trusted because it comes from someone who is looking out for your ultimate good. we can see this demonstrated in the relationship between Paul and Timothy. in his letter to the Philippians, Paul writes, “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.” as someone who has worked closely with Timothy, Paul is in an ideal position to vouch for his character. unlike others, Timothy proves his love for others by directing them toward Christ instead of focusing on his own interests. it is this trustworthiness that not only makes him invaluable to the ministry, but puts him in a position for Paul to trust him implicitly. it is this type of friendship, the “iron sharpens iron” sort of Proverbs 27, that is best equipped to reveal God’s character.
now, in all this talk about honesty, it can be easy to get a little carried away and forget that part of friendship is being kind. Job’s friends are maybe most famous for botching this. though they initially come to comfort him, their “counsel” quickly turns into baseless attacks on his character, alleging that if God is just, Job’s suffering must be a result of his own sin and attempts to hide it. Job calls them out multiple times throughout their discourse. “He who withholds kindness [hesed] from a friend [rea] forsakes the fear of the Almighty,” he tells them. “You would even cast lots over the fatherless and bargain over your friend [rea].” they are so cold and hard-hearted that the bond of friendship has come to make no difference in their dealings with him. though they are present with him and believe they are giving him sound counsel, they fail to support him in his grief and actually engage with his struggle. on the other hand, Proverbs 22 elevates the type of friend who “loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious [hen].” hen can translate roughly as “favor” or “grace,”and is the noun form of the verb hanan. a good friend speaks with grace, and does not disparage his friend's character.
but hold on, we need to back up a little here. i was going to filter down a more specific definition for kindness, but it turns out to have a (not all that) surprising relationship with another essential characteristic for a friend: loyalty. if you’ve been paying close attention, you may have noticed that i cited a word which i did not define, so i will do so now. “kindness,” or “lovingkindness,” as some versions put it, is translated from the Hebrew word hesed. this word also frequently translates to “faithfulness,” “steadfast love,” or “loyalty.” so you could argue that it’s the same concept. but in our culture today, “kindness” has a rather different connotation from “loyalty.” one describes action and speech; the other describes a deep level of commitment. one conjures up warm fuzzies, while the other sits with another during times of trial. so for our language, you could say that they are two sides of the same coin. yet the Bible does not differentiate them. instead, here’s a different definition of a deeper loyalty for our modern Western brains. Proverbs 17 and 18 describe a friend as someone who “loves at all times” and is “born for adversity,” who stays near in times of trouble, and who “sticks closer than a brother.” Psalm 35 describes a friend as one who grieves on behalf of his friend’s pain. in all of these examples, friendship is described as a “through thick and thin” kind of affair. it’s not merely convenient, and not simply something to be enjoyed when it’s easy to do so; rather, the heart of it is that friends would face difficulties together, and that their best interests are intertwined with one another. Ecclesiastes 4 emphasizes it more fully: "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him--a threefold cord is not quickly broken." admittedly, i'm taking some liberties with the application of this passage; it is often applied in the context of a marriage, but there is nothing in the passage that specifically links it to that, and i see no reason why it need be read as that specific. it’s an unusually practical view of what a friendship looks like, but that’s the very thing that makes it significant: it’s taken as a given--even part of the purpose of the relationship--that friends carry their burdens together. the fact is, we do sometimes fall, face unbearable cold, or face other situations that cannot be withstood alone. but in the context of friendship, these situations do not leave us in hopelessness and despair. moreover, the cord of three strands is often interpreted as God being interwoven into the relationship, making it strong and durable--kind of like a covenant.
in fact, the idea of friendship being a covenant relationship is not merely speculation. the Hebrew word for “covenant” is the word berit, and it can refer to different kinds of relationships: alliances between men, friendships between men, constitutions between leaders and their subjects, pledges between a man and a woman (as in a marriage covenant), or pledges between men and God. given the various kinds of covenants that are covered under the same word, it can get confusing quickly, but the very idea of loyalty in a friendship suggests that there is a mutual understanding of the relationship to which both people are agreeing, and we see this demonstrated in multiple instances in the Bible. Psalm 55 is a lament from the perspective of a man who was betrayed by a friend: “For it is not an enemy who taunts me--then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me--then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng . . . My companion stretched out his hand against his friends; he violated his covenant [berit].” the covenant in this case seems to be more than a formal agreement; rather it suggests emotional intimacy originally built on the foundation of a common faith. this, of course, would be a much more damaging break than that of a simple acquaintanceship, for example. but for a more specific and encouraging example, we can look to one of the most well-known Biblical examples of friendship: David and Jonathan. the first time we see them interact with one another, the Bible describes their souls being knit together in love, and they make a covenant. as a sign of this covenant, Jonathan gives David his robe, armor, belt, sword, and bow, a sign of utmost loyalty. throughout their friendship, Jonathan’s father, King Saul, became jealous of David and sought his life. in all this, Jonathan opposed his father and risked his own life to stop him, and to protect David. he even made another covenant with David before God, recognizing him as the future king over Israel, with Jonathan himself at his right hand. unfortunately, this vision never came to pass. both Jonathan and Saul died in battle, and David went into public mourning and wrote a lament for them, in which he paid particular homage to Jonathan and their relationship:
“Jonathan lies slain on your high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
very pleasant you have been to me;
your love to me was extraordinary,
surpassing the love of women.”
David never forgot Jonathan or the covenants he made with him. some time after he became king, David sought out Jonathan’s family, and found out that Jonathan had one son left, Mephibosheth, who led a humble life because he was crippled in his feet. remembering his dedication to Jonathan, he took in Mephibosheth to eat at his own table and gave him everything he had inherited from Saul. David’s loyalty to Jonathan was not just for life, but extended forward into future generations.
i don’t think that it’s any coincidence that trustworthiness, kindness, and loyalty--three central parts of friendship--are all part of how God calls the Church to interact with one another. Paul writes this to the Galatians: "Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” the focus of this passage is for members of the Church, emphasizing that we should protect the integrity of one another and ourselves. and yet, this message is delivered in a spirit of kindness. woven throughout it all is the loyalty that is central to such a relationship—that of bearing one another’s burdens, even as though they were our own. as we grow toward God in these ways, we are better able to embody true friendship. which makes sense, really, because these are traits which define his own character. God is described throughout the Bible as “merciful and gracious [hannun, from hanan], slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love [hesed] and faithfulness [emet].” friendship is a gift and a covenant, and as we strive to embody it better, we can be comforted by remembering that God himself embodied it first, and strengthened by being the recipients of his loving friendship.
