As those called to love our neighbors as ourselves and those who have seen this modeled perfectly in the One who was rightly called the “friend of sinners,” we want to have friendships for reasons of offering a blessing to others. We ought to pursue friendships not just for what we can gain from the relationship, but for what we can give. If friendships prove that we need, they also prove that we are needed; if they prove we are loved, they also prove that we love.

You may have noticed that books tend to arrive in bunches. Once publishers identify that readers are interested in a particular theme, several will often commission authors to write on the subject. Over the past couple of years we’ve seen quite a number of books on friendship. Most of them address friendship in a digital world and say, rightly, that it has fallen on hard times as so many people focus less on real-world relationships and more on online relationships. Social media has increased the quantity of our friendships, but perhaps also eroded their quality. We are a long way from the days when a person would count herself blessed if she could name one or two close friends among her acquaintances.

Many of these books call us away from our innate selfishness, and rightly so. Many of us want to have friendships for reasons of personal satisfaction and fulfillment. We want to be wanted, we want to be loved, we want to have the benefits that come with intimate friendships. In this way, friendships can actually reflect a form of selfishness. But as Christians, those called to love our neighbors as ourselves and those who have seen this modeled perfectly in the One who was rightly called the “friend of sinners,” we want to have friendships for reasons of offering a blessing to others. We ought to pursue friendships not just for what we can gain from the relationship, but for what we can give. If friendships prove that we need, they also prove that we are needed; if they prove we are loved, they also prove that we love.

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