The Company We Keep: In Search of Biblical Friendship

by Jonathan D. Holmes

We are, after all, offspring of the Triune God who has always existed as a unity of three persons, and, in a move that remains stunning, he calls us friends, which is the very best of relationships.

we reflect God’s image when we live in God-centered relationship; when we pursue biblical friendship.

When our friendships exist for our own pleasure, comfort, and relational happiness, rather than a communication of God’s love and mercy in the gospel, we’re telling the story badly, and we may be telling the wrong story altogether.

On the one hand, every human being was built for intimacy and relationship, yet through sin we have a penchant for looking for these things in all the wrong places.

If a biblical friendship is essentially one that is Christ-centered, it’s hard to imagine a worse counterfeit than a friendship that is self-centered.

It dawned on me that friendship isn’t so much a series of things we need to do. Friendship is more about who we need to be.

Counseling is simply inter-personal ministry. It is living out the one-anothers of Scripture together.

If you want to have biblical friendship, study the gospel until you realize we are all weak and needy. Then you will be willing to admit your own flaws to others, and you won’t be shocked when you find out the extent to which weakness and neediness characterize even the greatest believers you know.

God chose to show us in his Word that even the divine Son could only maintain a limited number of what we are calling biblical friendships.

By demonstrating unity in a world characterized by division, they tell the story of the gospel in a way nothing else can.