A Good Friend
Scripture Reading: Proverbs 18:24
A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
I’m quoting the translation from the ESV. The NKJV version, along with others, translates the first part of the verse as “A man who has friends must himself be friendly.” While that is a truism, it isn’t an accurate translation. This proverb is telling us something that we all instinctively understand and know by experience, whether our own or the observation of others’ experiences.
Back when I first opened a Facebook page, there was a flurry of additions to my “friends” list. Facebook algorithms do a good job of finding connections. Old schoolmates, former fellow employees, past church connections, and others started appearing on the “people you may know list.” I sent out “friend requests” and received many from others. At times Monica would chide me for my penchant to accept friend requests from almost anyone who asked. My list of Facebook friends grew to over a thousand before I started backing off.
Other people known as “influencers” on social media have “followers.” That’s what they call them. They do videos and talk to their “followers” like they are best buds. They start with “Hey Guys…” like they are old friends. They tell them they love them.
My point here is not to rail against social media. It has its place in today's world. We just need to be realistic about what it is and what it isn’t. Friends are Facebook have the qualifier of “Facebook” before the word “friends” for a reason. They, with a few exceptions, aren’t friends in any real sense of the word.
That brings us around to this wisdom that was written centuries ago. Having a lot of people you call friends doesn’t add as much value to your life as you might think. Again, that is not to say you shouldn’t use social media. It is to say that you shouldn’t use social media as a gauge of true friendship. Therefore, be careful about how much personal investment of yourself you put into it.
The second half of this proverb points us in a better direction. There is a kind of friend who sticks closer than a brother. That isn’t a knock on family relationships. It is saying that the closest and best relationships are often family relationships. In good family relationships, you can count on your kin. That’s why we have that old saying, “Blood is thicker than water.”
What the proverb tells us is we can develop the kind of friendships that go even deeper than that relationship between siblings. It also reminds us that that kind of friendship isn’t going to happen on a large scale. It will be a small number of people who are the kind of friends who stick closer than a brother. There is a reason for that. That kind of friendship requires time. We have to develop trust and a love for the other person that can’t happen at scale.
The way we can apply this wisdom today is to make sure we are investing more time and energy into developing those personal relationships than we are putting into developing a following on Instagram or friends on Facebook.
The kind of friends this proverb is encouraging can be described by the old saying that a true friend is the one who walks in when the whole world walks out.
You might read that and wonder if you have any friends like that. If you are a Christian, you have at least one to start with. Jesus is that friend to all who call Him Lord. That’s about as good of a start to your real friend list as you can have. Start with Him and then see if you can develop a few more from there.
