Friendship- It is a beautiful word, but it often times has many meanings: Good friendships. Bad friendships. Close friendships. Best friendships. Some friendships are blessings, but some cause pain and hurt. What is the real meaning behind the word?
The Webster’s 1828 Dictionary describes friendship as follows:
FRIEND’SHIP, n. frend’ship.
1. An attachment to a person, proceeding from intimate acquaintance, and a reciprocation of kind offices, or from a favorable opinion of the amiable and respectable qualities of his mind. Friendship differs from benevolence, which is good will to mankind in general, and from that love which springs from animal appetite. True friendship is a noble and virtuous attachment, springing from a pure source, a respect for worth or amiable qualities. False friendship may subsist between bad men, as between thieves and pirates. This is a temporary attachment springing from interest, and may change in a moment to enmity and rancor.
It’s as simple as that. Friendships can form through intimate acquaintance, or from something as simple as an act of kindness or a favorable opinion. True friendship (which I hope that you all are blessed enough to have in your life) is noble, virtuous, pure, and is based on respect and love. False friendships (the type that hurt one, or both, parties involved) is based on personal interest and gain and can change on a whim.
Proverbs 19:6 gives and example of false friendships based on seeking material gain:
Many seek the favor of a generous man, and everyone is a friend to a man who gives gifts.
This offers the perfect opportunity to evaluate the friendships in your life. Are they true friendships, where the focus in the relationship is not based on yourself, but on each other and their interests? Or are your motives purely selfish, not caring about the person you are attaching yourself to? Are you only thinking about what you can get out of your friendship with a certain person and not about their feelings? Maybe you can gain popularity, or some type of status or material gain from this friendship? If this is true, then you are only using this person and it can only end in (as Webster said) enmity and rancor.
Job chapter 19 says:
My close friends have forgotten me.
All my intimate friends abhor me,
and those whom I loved have turned against me.
All I can say is, “Poor, poor, Job!” If all of those friendships that he thought to be based on pure love and respect really just turned out to be false, how alone and betrayed he must have felt! Imagine if the people in your life (those outside of your family) that you felt closest to, left you in your hour of need? If the people whom you confided in turned around and broke your trust? These are the consequences for forming false friendships and being a superficial friend yourself.
I’m not condemning anyone and I praise God that I have many, many of the perfect and true friendships in my life, but I’m just asking that everyone look inside of them and consider each and every one of your friendships and make sure that they are built upon the principals in the Bible and are pleasing in the eyes of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Proverbs 17:17 says:
A friend loves at all times.
And John 15: 13 states:
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
These should be our examples and blueprints for forming true and God-honoring friendships. If we can love a person at all times and be willing to lay our lives down for them, what room could their be in that relationship for self-interest? I’ll tell you: None
Great topic. Great article.
Thanks for this Cassie. I this world of social networking where it seems you are a better person to know the right friends or to have hundreds or thousands of friends, this is so important to know.
Shalom~
What was a great post with much to think about.
Thank you so much for sharing this! I so appreciate those who are my closest friends. I’ve had some that I thought were my friends but who revealed secrets or threw me under the bus. Ugh! Those friends that I truly can call best are those that are my “iron sharpening iron”.