Ryan Motta
Proverbs: The Wisdom and the Ways of God
“Then the Lord God said, ‘it is not good that man should be alone.’”
– Genesis 2:18a
“In a biblical framework, therefore, friendship is not the consolation prize for those who fail to gain romantic love. Like marriage and like parenthood, it is another way in which God manifests an aspect of His love for us.”
– Rebecca McLaughlin
“You are made in the image of the God of exuberant love. You are most like God, and you are most truly human when you want friendship. Your unmet longings for friendship are not evidence of a deficiency; they are signs of your dignity. God made you for friendship.”
– Drew Hunter, Made for Friendship
“There is no book, even in classical literature, which so exalts the idea of friendship, and is so anxious to have it truly valued, and carefully kept.”
– Kent Hughes
Discussion Questions
- When you hear statistics indicating that 12% of Americans report having “no friends”, or that in 2021 the average person reported spending 3.5 hours/week doing things with friends … do you find these numbers surprising? Concerning?
- What would it look like for you, this week, to introduce some vulnerability to a relationship with someone who’s already a good friend?
- What risks to “deep friendships” do you see in your life, that might work to make friends difficult to find or nurture? What are some specific things you can to do mitigate these risk factors
- During this coming week, what can you do to remind yourself to look for opportunities to express friendship to others, by reflecting the love from our relational Lord & Savior?
Friendship looks like…
- Vulnerability
- Honesty
- Advice
- Physical presence
“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”
– Proverbs 17:17
“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.”
– C.S. Lewis
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.”
– Proverbs 27:6
“Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.”
– Proverbs 27:9
“Do not forsake your friend and your father’s friend, and do not go to your brother’s house in the day of your calamity. Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother who is far away.”
– Proverbs 27:10
The Proverbs reveal…
- a good friend is hard to find.
- our friendships can be surface-level.
- that our friendships have a strong influence.
- we may seek isolation.
“Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man who can find?”
– Proverbs 20:6
“A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”
– Proverbs 18:24
“Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.”
– Proverbs 22:24-25
“Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.”
– Proverbs 18:1
“He who would be happy here [Earth] must have friends; and he who would be happy hereafter, must, above all things, find a friend in the world to come, in the person of God.”
– Charles Spurgeon
“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.”
– John 15:12-13
“These familiar words are more profound than we may realize. On the eve of His death, Jesus wanted His disciples to know that the cross was not only the great demonstration of love but also a cosmic act of friendship. He said, ‘greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.’ The cross was history’s most heroic act of friendship.”
– Drew Hunter