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Friendship is a subject usually ignored by Bible teachers despite the fact that the Scriptures devote quite a bit of space to the subject. Last week I felt like God directed my attention to this subject, so undoubtedly someone needs to hear what the scriptures have to say about friendship. We will begin by taking a quick overview of what the book of Proverbs has to say about what it true friendship and what is not:

A whisperer is NOT a true friend. A "froward man" is someone who despises authority and who is always giving a half-truth or whispering something about someone else. The gossip who is a whisperer is the chief enemy to true friendships! Don't think just because a person "confides" in you about somebody else that they are your friend, because in actuality the scriptures say that they are the ones who "separateth chief friends!" If they will whisper to you about someone else, then they will whisper something to someone else about you!

A true friend does not broadcast the faults of their friend. This does not mean that you lie for them or cover for their sins, but rather that you do not tell everyone of them and cause that person's downfall. A true friend, when aware of a sin or wrong in someone's life, will privately go to that person with a spirit of meekness and try to restore them (Galations 6:1, James 5:19-20). Someone who finds out your fault or weakness and proceeds to tell others is not a true friend!

A true friend is friendly and will be closer than blood relations! If you do not have very many friends, then find yourself in these scriptures. Do you whisper about others? Do you broadcast other's faults? Or is it that you are just unfriendly? Nobody likes to be friends with a grouch!

Everybody wants to be friends with the wealthy, but most people do not go out of their way to befriend the poor. The next set of verses tell us that this is not true friendship:

Everybody wants to be the friend of someone in authority or position! Yet few people go out of their way to befriend the poor. This tells us something negative about human nature. Most people offer friendship only when they see that they will get something in return. If they do not see how the friendship will help them, then few people try to establish it! Think about who you are friends with and ask yourself why you are friends with them. Is there anyone that you could identify as a friend that does not bring you any profit? If not, then we need to work toward befriending everyone, not just those who would profit us the most! One way to turn this aspect of human nature into a positive thing is to show yourself friendly by giving gifts! People like to receive gifts because it appeals to their "profit" nature.

If you want to be friends with a leader, either political or spiritual, then you must speak with a pureness of heart and love. Leaders, especially spiritual ones such as pastors and preachers, are constantly surrounded by people who are negative and gossips and someone who is sincere and real and has a "pureness" about them are breaths of fresh air!

Friendships affect us in a tremendous way! You will eventually act like the people with which you choose to spend time and associate yourself constantly. Knowing this, a wise person will choose their friends carefully. If you hang out with people who are gossips, you will eventually become a gossip as well. If you hang out with negative people or crooks, then eventually you will become what they are. By the same idea, if you hang out with God-fearing, and loving people then you will emulate their attitudes! Choose your friends carefully, because whether you want to or not, you will eventually emulate them!

Friendship should not be judged by conflict. Most people think that an ideal friendship (or for that matter, marriage) is one without any conflicts. That is absolutely NOT true! A sign of a true friend is that they will disagree with you when your actions warrant correction but will do so personally and with a good attitude trying to improve the relationship. An enemy is one who does not care what happens to you, so they will often avoid confrontation and tell you whatever you want to hear! A good relationship is one that is able to deal with an issue and yet never question the friendship! That is a true friend!

A good friendship brings joy to a man's soul. It then follows that a bad friendship ...

You should value your friendships and spend time cultivating them. We should also make it a point to befriend our parent's friends because by doing so we are honoring our parents! You will find that over time a true friend will be much closer and of much more help than a blood brother or sister that is distant!

This is a cute way to point out that we should also not take advantage of our friendships! We must use consideration when "blessing" a friend with our presence or a phone call. Remember that there is a right time as well as a right word for every thing! We must respect our friendships enough that we are considerate of their agendas and feelings.

A very popular verse that is actually talking about friendship. Friends should improve each other as iron sharpens iron. God has a way of placing people together whose weaknesses and strengths counter each other. This is especially true in marriages which should be the closest friendship of all. A good test to see if a friendship is genuine is to ask yourself if hanging around the other person causes you to become a better Christian. If not, then iron is not sharpening iron, and it is not a profitable friendship.

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The Bible spends quite a bit of space in warning of the danger of bad friends. There are more stories than we have time to delve into. The classic story is the story of Amnon.

Amnon was a son of David and Tamar was his beautiful half-sister. Amnon fell into "lust" with Tamar and desired her but did not think that his father would allow him to marry his half-sister. The scriptures say that he would have left well enough alone and moved on with his life except for the interference of one of his "friends."

"Jonadab" was a "very subtil man." That's a nice way of putting it that Jonadab was deceitful and underhanded. Amnon was hanging around the wrong types of friends. And when Jonadab heard about Amnon's "love" for Tamar, he invented an elaborate plan to allow Amnon to rape Tamar which in those days would have forced her to marry him. Amnon, who would have left everything alone, followed his "friend's advice" and faked his sickness and asked that Tamar could cook a meal for him. When they were alone, he raped his half-sister. The only problem was that it did not turn out like Amnon thought, because after the rape, he despised her in his heart and could not stand the sight of her! And eventually Absalom, Amnon's brother would kill him for the rape. Three lives were completely ruined all because Amnon chose to hang around the wrong friend!

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For examples of what a friend should NOT be, we only have to look to Job's four friends who came to comfort him. They had been the best of friends when Job was rich, but after disaster struck three of the four turned on him maliciously. In fact, speaking of them, Job said:

Last week I felt impressed to study the characteristics of Job's friends and what exactly they did that was so bad. Surely these represent the four worst possible friends to have. I challenge you to avoid being friends with people of the same spirit. Here are the fruits of my study:

1. Eliphaz - (Job 4-5, 15, 22) His name means "God is victorious." Eliphaz was the oldest and most religious friend that came to comfort Job. He was a leader in a distant land and was supposed to speak in the "conventional wisdom" of man. The problem with Eliphaz is that he automatically assumed that Job was guilty of some great sin. He also had a problem with Job asking questions of God or even asking God for explanations. He represents the self-righteous friend who always want to talk about your troubles and your faults and never admit their own faults. They are the "constructive criticizers" who try to make everyone think that they are just too good and too holy to have such problems! A true friend will confront issues and problems in your life with an humble spirit and will also share some of their struggles. Someone with the spirit of Eliphaz will never admit that they did something wrong and will never apologize, but will be quick to point out your mistakes. You don't need a friend like Eliphaz.

2. Bildad - (Job 8, 18, 25) His name means "son of contention." He was the argumentative one for the sake of being argumentative. He had no point of his own to prove but just loved to contradict Job for the sake of contradiction. He represents those friends who will always disagree simply because they love to argue. The problem with so called "friends" like Bildad is that they never shut up. Bildad is the one who has to speak last. People like him are the instigators that set people up against each other just for the sake of division. People who have the spirit of Bildad upon them always bring confusion and strife into a situation. You'll have enough problems in life without befriending a Bildad who just loves to argue and provoke arguments!

3. Zophar - (Job 11, 20) The most violent and the most negative of the group. His name means "doubtful." He doubted everything and assumed the worst about Job: that he was a horrible sinner who had not received near the punishment that he deserved; that his children must have been horrible people because they died; and that his servants must have been unfaithful. People with the spirit of Zophar are negative, negative, negative. They pull everyone around them down with their negativity and have never spoken an encouraging word in their life! Friends like this are the ones who never compliment you, always had a bad day, and if they had to smile or have fun, their face would break! Life is too short to hang around Zophars!

4. Elihu - (Job 32-37) Perhaps the worst kind of friend to have is someone like Elihu. Not that Elihu was not a good friend, he was. In fact, at the end of Job, God told Job to offer sacrifice and ask for forgiveness for Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, but not Elihu which means that Elihu never sinned in his speech or arguments. Elihu was Job's only friend and remained true to him until Jehovah God came down and answered Job's questions. The problem with Elihu is that he was too timid to speak up against the other three until the very end! He got there late and sat in silence, allowing the other three to rail on Job with false accusations and did not at first defend Job. How many of us are good friends to people and yet when a bad situation happens, we do not lift a finger or a voice to help our friend? Elihu did not believe that Job was guilty but he was too timid and would not "stick his neck on the line" and help Job at first until he heard every bit of the accusation and had determined that he did not agree. That is, Elihu did not want to do anything to jeopardize his good name and did not defend Job until he could be sure that he would come out "smelling like a rose." Many good, Godly men and women have been destroyed because their true friends would not come to their rescue and support when the critics and the destroyers began wagging their tongues! We must be careful to not get into other people's battles, but if we are to be a true friend, then we must rush to their aid and not wait until we think we see the outcome of the situation before we offer a solution!

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From all of these scriptures that we have read in this lesson, we can learn that God classifies friendships into categories. Not all friends are on the same level and there are "chief friends" and a "friend that sticketh closer than a brother."

It has been said that from scripture we can identify five levels of friendship:

1. Casual Acquaintances - people whom you may know their name and very minimal information and you only speak with unless chance brings you together. Over a lifetime you will have thousands of casual acquaintances.

2. Mutual Friends - people who are closer friends to someone who is a close friend to you. You speak to them only when they are around because of your mutual friend. You have spoken very little to them outside of the presence of your mutual friend. This can also be people who you have come to know through a common goal such as working together on a job, or in a similar vocation. Over a lifetime you will have hundreds of mutual friends.

3. Distant Friends - people whom you may have been close to at once or with whom you feel a bond with but, for various reasons, be it distance in location, time, or a change in the directions of your life, you have drifted from a closer friendship. When you see these people, you usually talk about the past and how it used to be.

4. Close Friends - people whom you talk with every week and with whom you have shared details of your life. Close friends are people with whom you feel comfortable "hanging out" with in your "down time." Count yourself lucky or blessed if you have more than ten close friends at any one time.

5. Intimate Friends - someone who knows your faults and your dreams and goals for your life. Someone to whom you have shared your heart and your burdens and whom you trust with your darkest secrets. Few people ever have more than 3-4 intimate friends in a lifetime and some only have 1!

There is scriptural basis for dividing the levels of friendship up like this because Jesus' friends all fall into these five categories. Jesus had thousands of people throughout Israel who had heard about Him and recognized Him even though there was never a substantial relationship. Of the thousands of people in Israel there were several hundred who would gather together when Jesus was in the region because they knew somebody that knew Jesus or knew someone who had been touched and ministered to by Him. These "mutual friends" never really wanted to be touched themselves but were content to blend into the crowds. Of the hundreds that would gather together when He taught, there were 70 whom Jesus considered good enough friends to send out to minister. These 70 formed His "distant friends." This class wanted a ministry and to see the power of God but was not willing to sell out everything to Jesus Christ. The twelve disciples formed Jesus' "close friends" and were the ones who sold out everything to follow Jesus and walked with Jesus everyday. Yet, some of them, like Judas and a few others who repeatedly asked about when Jesus was going to overthrow the Roman government, missed the vision and the true purpose for which Jesus had come. In the twelve, there were three disciples, with whom Jesus shared His heart, His vision, His burden and true purpose for coming to earth. They were Peter, James, and John. It was these three whom Jesus chose to accompany Him on the Mount of Transfiguration and see the power of God revealed. Of the three, John, was Jesus' greatest earthly friend and was referred to as "John the beloved" or "the disciple whom Jesus loved." James' quick temper and love of judgment led him to be the first killed of the twelve. Peter's wishy-washiness and prejudice inhibited the first part of his ministry. But John, who had the greatest revelation of who Jesus Christ was, had the most fruitful and longest ministry of the twelve!

The point is that people still hold Jesus at one of these points in their life! How do you view Jesus? Is He the "casual acquaintance" whom you know His name and some very basic information about Him but only talk to Him or spend time with Him if you happen to run into Him by chance? Or is He perhaps a mutual friend that you know only because your spouse or someone else is crazy about Him? Is the only time that you spend time with Jesus when you are with certain people? Or perhaps you are trying to serve Jesus from a distance, and you have drifted from a closer relationship because you felt His demands were too high? You are like the seventy, in that you want to be known as a Christian and a church goer and you want to see God's power in your life, but you are really not willing to sell out everything to Him! You really talk to Him every week or so and you go to church just enough to consider yourself a member. Or maybe you have forsaken your will for your life and you are one of Jesus' close friends. You love His Word and you love His Spirit and you love His house! You talk to Him everyday and you love to just be in His presence! But yet there are certain things in your heart, past, desires, or will that you would rather not discuss. You love Jesus Christ, but you haven't quite really grasped the real reason for why Jesus Christ came and that is to save the lost and reach and win someone! No one is denying that you are a Christian and that you are sincere, but God's heartbeat of winning the lost and holiness has not become priority in your life over everything else! Or maybe it is and you can be considered an "intimate friend" of Jesus Christ! If that is so, then you need to guard against allowing prejudices and love of position to steal and hamper your ministry! We must be like John and get a revelation of the mighty mercy and love of Jesus Christ and allow that love to shape everything that we do! What kind of friend do you consider Jesus Christ? What kind of friend would He consider you?

You see, Jesus is the friend that sticketh closer than a brother! Paul wrote that even when every person forsook him and did not stand up for him, that God did not forsake him:

Perhaps the greatest lesson of friendship is found at Jesus' arrest. Even though Judas had betrayed Him and was delivering Him up to be crucified, notice how Jesus responded:

Jesus called Judas "friend!" In other words, Jesus was saying, "Judas, you may be betraying me as a friend, but I want you to know that even if my flesh has to die, I will not turn my back on you as a friend!" So in closing, we return to our key verse:

Are we willing to love one another as Jesus Christ has loved us? Are we willing to lay down the will of our flesh in order to love our friends? Do we love Jesus Christ with the same devotion and commitment that He loves us? No command that Jesus gave us to follow is too great when viewed in the light of what Jesus did upon Calvary!