Written by Brittany Osborne and Seth McDuffie

Amidst social isolation, one thing is for sure: we all miss our friends. The desire for connection and face-to-face interaction exists regardless of age, marital status, location, whether a person is typically drawn to introversion or extroversion, etc. We all long for the day we can once again gather without masks or six feet of separation. This is telling of the value of friendship.

In the church, marriage is often the human relationship spoken of most frequently, and some would argue it is valued above other human relationships. Marriage is a beautiful, God-ordained, covenantal relationship necessary to life and human flourishing. It is an earthly reminder of the eternal reality that the Church is Christ’s bride and will be with him forever. However, while not all will marry this side of eternity, we all need friends. We feel the need for friendship now more than ever.

Friendships, along with all other relationships, are subordinate to our relationship with God. While the Bible does speak often on marriage and family, it also has plenty to offer regarding Christ-centered friendships. First, we have the privilege of being Christ’s friend. In John 15 Jesus says to his disciples,

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (v.12-15)

What a friend we have in Jesus! He laid down his life for us.

In turn, to love God and be Christ’s friend means we learn to lay down our lives for each other. Christ ordained friendship is selfless. While 1 Corinthians 13 is most often read at weddings, it is no less true of friendship. Friendships are a rich mark of Christ’s heart toward the church. We have the opportunity to move toward one another without legal obligation or a promise of faithfulness. Jesus moves towards us and invites us to live in pursuit of others without promise of reciprocation. If we were to focus our hope on the full reciprocation of other’s love towards us, then we would not be able to practice all the characteristics of love mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13. Christ models the perfect, selfless pursuit of friendship with his hope set on God.

Within that same vein of thinking, friendships are invitational and ask others to go deeper in the pursuit of gospel-centered living. Friendships can never be entirely exclusive, blocking others from looking or joining in. There will always be relationships that are unique to the people involved. While these are incredibly valuable and beautiful, they cannot stay isolated. We need to keep the windows and doors of our hearts open to others so we can hear to whom God is leading us. This is not to say we have to be incredible friends with everyone or have a gigantic friend circle, but our hearts are meant to be hospitable. To shut off those entrances would be to self-isolate or create an inbred feedback loop amongst an exclusive crowd. It could also mean not allowing others to peer into our weakness or help expose sin in love. In reality we are often comfortable keeping our doors of hospitality just barely ajar so we won’t feel inconvenienced. Although Jesus had his own close friends who he intimately lived alongside, he did it for the purpose of going out. He eventually left his friends because there was a bigger work of invitation to be done. This is what makes the formation of friendship so precious; it can be found in many places so God’s heart can be shown to many people through his Spirit.

Friendship is meant to be a Spirit-filled activity. As the relational common denominator of humanity, it is a valuable tool to be used by God, which we get to share in and enjoy. Gospel-centered friendships can be one of the first and most effective signs of God’s love for the world. As Jesus said in John 17, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

During this quarantine ask God where your heart is for friendships. Is your heart open to gospel-centered, sacrificial, and invitational friendships? Do you live your life with a hospitable heart, listening to where the Spirit may be leading? Who in this quarantine needs to be reached out to? He invites us into some of his greatest work in our friendships, because in his greatest work of love we see Jesus laying his life down for us, his friends.