Brothers and sisters in Christ are meant to model their love, commitment, and purity on the familial relationship. Besides the hundreds of verses that exhort us to live as brothers and sisters, we have some very specific teaching on relationships: Treat “older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity,” says Paul to Timothy (1 Timothy 5:2). It’s like he’s saying, “Think about your own sisters and extend that very same level of love and purity to the young women in your church.”

Newton’s third law tells us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Though this law pertains to physics, it seems equally true in the realm of ideas. Recently, a renewed emphasis on the value of the Billy Graham/Mike Pence Rule as a means of protecting sexual fidelity has provoked an equal and opposite emphasis on the value of male-female friendships. To be clear, what’s under discussion here is not whether it’s okay for couples to be friends with other couples, but whether it is acceptable and advisable for a man and woman to share a close personal friendship while they are each married to other people.

I have been challenged by much of the writing about male-female friendships, I have been thinking about the topic a lot over the past few months, and I’m eager to apply it to my own life and friendships. I have observed that much of the discussion about opposite-sex friendships depends upon the brother-sister analogy that is so common in Scripture. When we put our faith in Jesus Christ and receive his salvation, we are adopted into the family of God, becoming brothers and sisters in the Lord. This relationship is a tremendous blessing and carries great significance. Addressing one another as “brother” and “sister” is not just Christian tradition, but proclamation of precious truth!

While the language of the spiritual family describes something genuine—we are bound together in Jesus Christ—we need to remember that it is also metaphorical. Metaphors are a useful means of fostering understanding, but they invariably have limitations, and we need to be careful we do not push them too far. As a kind of personal thinking challenge, I’ve been attempting to consider the brother-sister to see where I may encounter its limitations.

I have three biological sisters and enjoy close relationships with them. This closeness is not only a product of sharing genes and living our early lives together, but of spending plenty of quality time with one another and even divulging intimate details of our lives. I gladly go out for coffee or a meal with any of them. I stay overnight in their homes even if their husbands aren’t around. I get in a car with them at any time and under any circumstance. I call them up just to chat. I ask them deep and meaningful questions and even attempt to bring wisdom to bear on deeply personal matters. I deliberately seek their wisdom when I have questions about my life or marriage. I end every phone call with, “I love you.” There is a significant degree of relational intimacy between us, yet in all of it there is not the least danger, confusion, or misunderstanding about the nature of our relationship or our intentions. Why? Because we are brother and sisters. And it gets better still: no one else harbors the least suspicion about our relationship for the very same reason. Even if someone may initially raise an eyebrow when they see us together, all they need to hear is, “Meet my sister” and all suspicion vanishes.

Does this brother-sister relationship provide a valid model of what I should expect to experience with sisters in Christ? I believe the answer is a solid yes and no.

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