August 8, 2024
Last Sunday we explored the role that friendship plays as we pursue wisdom within our lives. The Book of Proverbs is very concerned with the nature of our friendships:
Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,
but the companion of fools suffers harm. (13:20)
Some friends play at friendship,
but a true friend sticks closer than one’s sibling. (18:24)
Well meant are the wounds a friend inflicts,
but profuse are the kisses of an enemy. (27:6)
I shared with you all that biblical scholars believe that the Book of Proverbs was compiled during a time of sweeping, massive change within Israelite culture. One of those changes was that people were becoming less connected with their land-of-origin and families and were instead forming relationships with people they were not related to, i.e. friends.
We live in a similar time right now. The rate of marriages in the United States has plummeted by 60% since 1950 (“American the single”), a rising share of American adults are choosing to remain single (“Pew Research”), and societal attitudes towards both marriage and family are undergoing monumental transformation (“NPR”). Some of those changes give me some pause. I worry about children not growing up with enough supportive familial presence in their lives. And certainly we ought to at least consider a correlation between these changing mores and the ongoing loneliness epidemic within our culture.
However, I don’t think all of these changes are innately bad. For a long time in American Christian churches, marriage and family were (explicitly or implicitly) held up as the gold standards of human experience. And do not misunderstand me: being married and having children is an immense gift. But let us not forget that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church: To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain unmarried as I am (1 Cor. 7:8).
There are gifts found in a life of singleness and, for many such people, friendship becomes a much more vital and important aspect of their lives. I recently read a fascinating book by the journalist Rhaina Cohen called The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center. Now, make no mistake: this book is not coming from a strictly Christian perspective, but it still provides an interesting snapshot into the ways that some people are finding relational and emotional fulfilment by investing in their friendships.
What we need to recognize is that whether we are married or single, God has created us with a need for friendship. And just as we celebrate healthy marriages and loving parents, we should also receive just as much joy from the gifts we receive from our friends. It’s certainly true in my life that (in the words of John, Paul, George, and Ringo), “I get by with a little help from my friends.”
