Ep. 186: What Does It Mean To Be A Friend?

Kourtney Cromwell:
Welcome to the indoubt Podcast, where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week we talk with guests who help answer questions of faith, life, and culture, connecting them to our daily experiences and God’s word. For more info on indoubt, visit indoubt.ca, or indoubt.com.

Kourtney Cromwell:
Thanks for joining us on this episode of indoubt. My name is Kourtney, the indoubt coordinator, and I’m so glad you’re listening today. On this week’s episode, we’re going to be revisiting a previous episode that originally aired in May 2017 where Isaac talks with the Pastor of Counseling at Parkside Church, Jonathan Holmes.
Jonathan is actually going to be with us for next week’s episode, talking about marriage and singleness. We thought it would be valuable to go back to this original episode and listen to the conversation on biblical friendship. It’s always important to look at the relationships in your life, and we’ll be taking the next two weeks to do just that. Friendship is usually about connecting with someone or multiple people by enjoying their company and talking about the things in life. For a lot of people, friendship is defined as a necessity, but we also need to consider the biblical aspect of friendship when it comes to the body of Christ. This is an important issue and a good episode that I hope you enjoy. So, here’s Isaac and Jonathan’s episode.

Isaac Dagneau:
Well, with me today is Jonathan Holmes. Jonathan is a campus pastor of Parkside Church and the counseling, sort of oversees counseling for all the churches under Parkside Church in Ohio. And Parkside Church is actually the teaching ministry of … teaching ministry is where Alistair Begg preaches. And you might’ve heard that name before. Jonathan is also the author of The Company We Keep: In Search Of Biblical Friendship.
Anyways, thanks for coming on the show today, Jonathan.

Jonathan Holmes:
Thank you Isaac.

Isaac Dagneau:
Why don’t you just first tell us a bit about yourself. So for myself and listeners, it’s like, “Okay, this is who he is, this is his family, this is what he likes to do,” and also the work that you do at Parkside Church.

Jonathan Holmes:
Well, thanks so much for having me on. It’s an honor and it’s a privilege anytime I can talk and share about Christ, and specifically about friendship.
My name is Jonathan. I serve at Parkside Church, as you mentioned, as the pastor of counseling. We have four campuses here in the Cleveland area, and I oversee our counseling and our counseling ministries as well as serve at one of our campuses in the southern part of the city. I’m married, I’ve been married for about 11 years to my wonderful wife Jen. We have four children, all girls.

Isaac Dagneau:
Oh my goodness.

Jonathan Holmes:
I have girls going from age eight all the way to two. And it is an exciting time in the Holmes home. So, I love having all girls. I love having daughters. It’s been a wonderful adventure.

Isaac Dagneau:
That’s awesome. And what sort of … I mean, I don’t know if you have free time, but if you did have free time, what are some things that you enjoy to do?

Jonathan Holmes:
Right. Well, when we’re not changing diapers and doing math homework, my wife and I love to travel. We love to share a good meal together. I like to read. I like to be outside, and do gardening, and do things around our yard. But just love being with other people too.

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah, that’s so good. That’s awesome. Well, let’s just head straight into it because I really want to have a lot of this time to get into friendship. So anyways, let’s just start here. You mentioned in your book that we are relational beings, that, as a human, part of our ontology is we’re relational. I guess the first question is what does that mean? And where do we find that in Scripture?

Jonathan Holmes:
Right. Great question. Well, when you look in the Genesis narratives there in Genesis 1 and 2, you see in Genesis 1:26 that God makes us in his image. And a lot has been written and said about that plural pronoun there where God says, “Let us make man in our image.” And so, one of the things that we immediately see is that the way that we are created is meant to image God and the way that God relates within a community. We realize that at creation, not only is God present, but God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit are also there.
So we realize that for all of eternity, God has himself existed within the community, within a relationship. And so, in Genesis 1:26 when he says, “Let us make man in our image,” part of that image bearing capacity is the capacity and the necessity really to be in relationship.
So as you go through the Genesis narrative, there is this cadence of God creates, it was morning, it was evening, the first day, and it was good. And when you get to the sixth day, that cadence stops a little bit. God creates Adam. But in Genesis 2 there is a recognition that there is something that’s not good. There’s something that’s not good about just Adam being on his own. And you can almost imagine, as Adam is naming all the animals, that there’s a sense that there’s not a way that he can fully image God in the way that he has been created with just an animal or with nature.
And so, as we know, God creates Eve for him. And so, we see there that when man and woman unite together, a lot of the primary application that’s been written about Genesis 2 is about marriage and the goodness of marriage, but I think even before that, what you see is that Adam needed another person with whom he could fully image God with, that he was not able to fully image God by himself. And that’s what was not good. And that’s why God created Eve.
And so, when we look at that, when we look at that dynamic then in Genesis 1 and 2, I think it’s so important for us to see that we really were created to be in community. We were created and designed to be in relationship. And so, Adam’s loneliness that he sees and that he feels and that he inherently notices in Genesis 2, that’s actually because he was perfect. Loneliness is actually an aspect of our perfection. And so, that’s I think a really wonderful thing that we begin to see there in Genesis 1 and 2.

Isaac Dagneau:
That’s really, that’s awesome. And I think it’s neat too how it says, “It is not good for man to be alone.” It’s not just … It doesn’t work when man’s alone, or it’s actually something to do with the goodness, you know?

Jonathan Holmes:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Isaac Dagneau:
That’s awesome. Now, you say in your book, you say this, I’ll quote it, “As soon as sin appeared, we quickly became I, and human history has never been the same.” And I loved that little quote. But anyways, can you just expound on that a little bit more?

Jonathan Holmes:
Yeah. When you read, again, in the Genesis narrative at the end of Chapter 2, Adam sees Eve, and the words really can’t contain his excitement, his passion. He says, “At last, this is woman, bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh.” It’s written poetically, and we even see that in terms of how our text actually sections that off as poetry. But you see this wonderful exclamation of unity, of purpose, of relationship, and friendship. You get the sense as you move along, that they’re in relationship, they walk in the garden every day with God.
But in Genesis 3, as soon as sin enters into the world, that unity, that oneness, that relational intensity, integrity, it quickly breaks apart. And so, God’s coming in the cool of the day, he’s looking for Adam and Eve, he’s saying, “Hey, where were you?” And it immediately turns into a finger pointing game, right? Adam’s blaming eve, Eve’s blaming the serpent. All of the relational connectedness, the friendship between the two of them is completely fractured. Everybody’s out for himself. Nobody’s taking responsibility. There’s shame, there’s guilt, there’s embarrassment, there’s a recognition at the core that they have sinned, that something’s wrong. And that’s in many ways why they’re hiding, not only from God, but in many ways from themselves.
And so, from Genesis 3 onward, the ability to be in human relationships, and by extension friendships, has been completely altered. And you see it play out immediately in Genesis 4 where you see two brothers who, in a perfect world, should be getting along, imaging God together perfectly with one another. You see Cain turns against his brother and murders his brother. So human history ramps up very quickly in terms of the way that sin affects our relationships, and by extension our friendships.

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah. No, that’s very good. And I look around at even our culture today, specifically in kind of maybe urban centres in the West, North America, I just don’t see a lot of close friendships. I even think of our own churches, our own local churches, and think it’s really … At the beginning of your book, you list a whole bunch of these kind of hypothetical examples of people that are sort of struggling with this feeling that they need that friendship, but it’s just not there quite.
And what you just said though about way back in the Genesis, in our roots, this must be the root of that problem now that’s causing autonomy, this individuality that’s sort of messing with us a little bit.

Jonathan Holmes:
Right. Absolutely. And I think one of the myths about friendship is that it should be somewhat easy. You find a friend, you have a lot of common interests, you enjoy the same things, and so the friendships should come easily. And oftentimes, friendships do come easily, but they’re definitely not maintained easily. And I think in large part that’s due to the way sin affects our relationships. We’re not self-sacrificial enough, we don’t love well enough, we don’t pursue people like we should. And so, it takes work then to be in friendship and to be in relationship.
And so, for most people that just sounds like a lot of work. So we kind of give up, we get disenchanted, we get disillusioned with friendship, and you withdraw, or you push back, or maybe you just allow your friendships to be somewhat superficial. But all of that I do think traces back to just the way that sin affects how we relate to one another.

Isaac Dagneau:
Right. That’s good. I want to actually come back to that, like how to have biblical friendships. But first, I think we need to first consider, okay, we’re talking about friend relationships, but now there’s this biblical friendships. What is that? And how does this differ from friendships with those maybe who aren’t Christian?

Jonathan Holmes:
Right. Great question. Again, my simplest definition of biblical friendship is it is a friendship that is centred on Christ where the two individuals are seeking to become more like him. So it’s a friendship that ultimately isn’t centred around a common interest, a stage of life, a technological platform, a political party, a certain grade level, or what not, or even gender, but a biblical friendship is centred on Christ. It’s centred on the gospel, how Christ brings two people together. And it exists primarily for both people to become more like Christ.
Now, there are many unintended consequences and benefits, mutual enjoyment together, having a companion, having a friend, having a comrade, etc. But the primary goal that we see of friendship is really that both people, both individuals are seeking to become more like Christ.

Isaac Dagneau:
Mm. Yeah. And I think it’s awesome. I think you quote Tim Keller in your book, I’m pretty sure, and he kind of makes the … I can’t remember exactly the exact quote, but he pretty much says that no matter the race, the interests, whatever it may be, different personalities, whatever, because there is this common goal to see Christ, to know Christ, to be like Christ, then it’s not just this thread that binds them together, but it’s a steel beam that can-

Jonathan Holmes:
Yes. Yes.

Isaac Dagneau:
And I just think that’s … We need to hear that today, because I look around at my generation, and you just see these cliques of people that are all the same. And there’s none of this multi-generational, multiethnic relationships going on. And I’m guessing this has an aspect to it, right?

Jonathan Holmes:
Right, right. Absolutely. And I think that’s so important. And again, I think the church oftentimes unintentionally can facilitate those types of fragmented relationships and friendships. So you have different stage of life groups meet and what not, broken down according to interest, or schedules or what not.
And I try to make the point in the book, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m not saying that that’s a bad way to do it. But we don’t want to forget that the primary reason why we can be friends and the primary purpose of the friendship has to be centred and rooted in the gospel, so that in John 15, Jesus says, “No longer do I call you servants, but I have called you friends.” And then it is the movement of friendship, that Jesus Christ moves towards us in friendship, reconciles us with God, the Father, that gives you and I a hope of pursuing friendship in a way then that can truly help you and I live into our design as image bearers of God.

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah. Ah, so good. Now, for all of us listening, including myself as well, we don’t often think of the ultimate purpose and design of friendship. We don’t automatically think, “Oh, it’s to point to God, and point one another to God, and for His glory.” We think friendships are for the things that maybe come under that. But you’re saying that this is the point of biblical friendship, to point one another to God. So, the question for me is like, I just feel like it’s waking up this generation to what friendship is. So how can we grow in that goal together?

Jonathan Holmes:
Well, that’s such a good question. Again, you, you look at the New Testament and it is absolutely impossible to read the ethical aspects of our faith, and read them and not think that you can do it by yourself, and to think that you can do it in isolation. I mean, the predominant movement of people who are in Christ is these one-another commands, these one-another imperatives. Well, you cannot one-another yourself, and I tell people all the time, the one-another’s require another person.
And so, this idea that I can just get saved and be a lone ranger and it’s just me and my private salvation, my private union with Christ, and it can be to the exclusion of other deep, meaningful relationships, I think ignores the faithful biblical witness of the New Testament. And so, what you see is that Christ is redeeming, not just individuals, is redeeming a church for Himself. He’s renewing a group of people, a people of God, a household of faith. And it’s that group of people then that, as they interact with one another in friendship, are able to become more like their Saviour.
So for example, in Ephesians 4, you see Paul start off at the individual level. He says, “Listen, I want all of you to fulfill your individual calling, live like you have been called.” But then when you move into verses 15 and 16, it’s very clear that the way that we do this is that we speak truth and love to one another. And in so doing, we build each other up. We build each other up in Christ so that the whole body is strengthened together.
Well, the way that that happens is through friendship. We get involved in other’s lives. We love one another. We pray for one another, we greet one another, we host one another, we admonish one another. And that’s the only friendship that really can hold and sustain the one-another’s, is friendship.
But can you do it in marriage? Absolutely. Can a parent/child relationship do that? Absolutely. But everybody doesn’t always have access to those different relationships. And so, friendship is the one relationship that, whatever background you come from in a church setting, friendship is, I would say it’s the most friendly of all. It’s the one that every person who is in Christ has opportunity to be a part of.

Isaac Dagneau:
That’s so good. It’s funny, as you say that, I’m thinking back to a conversation I had a little while ago with a representative from the International Gideons Bible Society. And we were talking about evangelism, and near the end of it, we started thinking that, “Well, before we can even go out and evangelize, we ourselves need to be enjoying the gospel for ourselves, and knowing the gospel, and knowing Jesus.” And I almost see that play here too. Before we can go and have these biblical friendships for the purpose of becoming like Christ, our hearts need to be aching to be like Christ, and to see His church.

Jonathan Holmes:
Yes. Yes.

Isaac Dagneau:
So how does the rule of Christ I guess play in friendship?

Jonathan Holmes:
In Romans 1:15, Paul says to the Church of Rome, he says, “I’m eager to come and to preach the gospel to you.” So, you immediately see that this church, there are people who are already saved. So why does Paul need to come preach the gospel to them if they already know it?

Isaac Dagneau:
That’s good.

Jonathan Holmes:
Well, the idea is, well, we need the gospel every day. The gospel is not only the way in, but it’s the way on. And it’s going to be what sustains and keeps us. So the message of the gospel is that God in Christ pursues people for Himself.
And so, if you don’t understand that individually, that part of the gospel means that God and Christ pursued you, well, then yeah, you’re not going to get why then you should go pursue someone else. If salvation is not permeating every aspect of who you are and what you do, how you think, how you look out for other people, well, then it probably makes sense that friendships aren’t going to be a priority.
But if you really understand the gospel and how it impacts everyday life, you can’t help but pursue others, because that is the dominant movement of the gospel: is God comes down to us in Christ, he sanctifies us, he justifies us, he pursues us to be in relationship with him. And so part of that imperative then of what it means to be in Christ is not only are you in Christ, but you’re a part of the family of God.
And so part of being in the family of God means that you have duties and obligations and responsibilities to those whom you find yourself in family relationship with. And so, friendship is the relationship then that I’m convinced of that helps us best articulate and work out so many of these different ethical commands and imperatives in the New Testament.

Isaac Dagneau:
That’s so good. For this last little section, I’m wondering if … I almost feel like you need to … Because obviously you’ve dug into this a lot, I would love for you to sort of just really share with us the gospel. Because I just kind of feel like a lot of young adults, millennials, whoever may be listening, their lack of actually going and starting these friendships is because of maybe their misunderstanding, or they’re just kind of maybe confused about God’s love for them.
Because you say in the book, and I think it’s so powerful, it actually is very profound, I had to share it with my friend right away when I read it, but I think you were quoting someone, but you said that God had to break his friendship at the cross in order for us to actually have friendship.

Jonathan Holmes:
Yes, yes.

Isaac Dagneau:
And when I read that, I was like, “I’ve never heard it said that way, because God is trinity, and He had to break that.” So yeah, could you just share with us what this Gospel is that really binds us together?

Jonathan Holmes:
Well, when we think about the gospel, we know that oftentimes the gospel can come to us propositionally. So in First Corinthians 15, Paul says, “For this I deliver to you, it’s of first importance, Christ died, he was buried, and he was raised again on the third day according to the Scriptures.” Well, that’s encapsulated propositional truth. That is the gospel.
We also know the gospel comes to us as a story. That’s really the story of the Bible. So if you think about it from the perspective of friendship, the way that I describe it to people is, well, here’s the first part of the story, part One, God created us for friendship. He created us to be in relationship with Him. He wanted to walk with us, He wanted to talk with us. But in Genesis 3, we see that friendship becomes broken. The way that we relate to God and the way that we relate to other people has forever been marred by sin so that our relationship is fundamentally broken and our relationship with other people is fundamentally broken.
So God made us for friendship. Friendship goes bad at the fall. So, the entire movement of this story is, well, then what makes it better? What redeems it? What gets us back to that Edenic ideal of perfect fellowship with the Father and perfect friendship with other people? And that’s where we get to Christ, and we see then that Christ is the perfect friend. He is the perfect God-man who can satisfy the requirements, both being fully God and fully human. And so, living life as a human being, and also being fully divine, He is able to be that perfect sacrifice for us.
And so it’s at the cross where we see, in the most cosmically beautiful way, but it’s also a really horrific scene, we see that that eternal friendship which has existed for all of eternity is broken. And you see Jesus crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?” Well, the only reason that we can come up with as we read the Gospels is that is the payment that is required for our sin. It required a perfect sacrifice.
And so, Christ goes to the cross, and in the single greatest act of friendship, he self-sacrifices himself, which is why in John 15:15, he says, “Greater love has no one than this, then He lay down His life for His friends.” Now, the difference between Christ’s sacrifice and how you and I self-sacrifice is that Christ’s sacrifice was voluntary. He didn’t need to do it. He voluntarily died in our place. And so we see then at the cross that friendship between God is actually made possible because Christ experiences total abandonment at the hands of the Father, whom He’s experienced eternal friendship with.
But the story doesn’t end there, because then after that we know Christ is raised from the dead. The gospel then is us being reconciled to God in Christ. But the final element, not only were we created for friendship, friendship has gone bad, Jesus redeems friendship, but also, we’re going to be friends forever. Because you look at Revelations 7, and the picture that you see there is people from every tribe, every county, every nation, glorifying and worshiping God together.
And so, I always tell people, “Listen, if you don’t like friendship now, you want to be by yourself,” I go, “You’re going to hate heaven.” Because that’s all heaven is. Heaven is a giant friendship party of people worshiping God forever, not as married people, not as single people, divorced, or widowed, or disenfranchised, or disillusioned, it’s people who are joined together as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Isaac Dagneau:
Wow.

Jonathan Holmes:
So the reason why friendship is so important is friendship is the relationship that best prepares you and I for our future reality with Christ and with God, worshiping him forever. And so, when you think about the storyline of the Gospel, that’s where I feel like it’s so important for us to understand it really from this perspective of friendship, because I think friendship really articulates and details out the storyline in such a beautiful way.

Isaac Dagneau:
That’s so good. Thank you for sharing that. It’s awesome. And I think there’s people probably listening that are just on board right now. They’re like, “Oh,” it clicked.
So I guess one of the practical questions, it might sound kind of funny, Jonathan, is, if someone’s listening, including myself, and if we want to see our church friendships become something that has this deep foundation, this deep root, how do we start? Do we need to tell our friends, “Hey, we need to start doing … we need to be pointing to Christ now, from this point on?” How can we start integrating that?

Jonathan Holmes:
Right. Right. Right. Well, I mean, the easy answer would be, “Hey, go buy the book. There’s a whole chapter on forging friendships.” But we’ll give people a little bit of a sneak peek here. It’s really simple, ordinary things. Friendship is formed in the ordinary, everyday mundane circumstances of life.
Every time you have coffee with a friend, every time you share a meal with a friend, you’re living out God’s design for you. Whether or not you know it or not, you are preparing for what? You’re preparing for that future meal, that meal that will happen for all of eternity, where Christ is seated at the marriage feast with his bride. So you’re not just eating a meal and catching a show with your friend, you’re actually getting ready for eternity, you know?

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah.

Jonathan Holmes:
Every time you pray for your friend, you’re becoming more like Christ, you’re pointing to Christ, because you’re acknowledging the fact that you’re not meant to live life alone and you need help from outside yourself to handle the difficulties and the burdens and the hardships.
Every time you speak Truth to a friend, every time you confront your friend, every time you give counsel to your friend, you’re becoming more like Christ because you realize that none of us are supposed to just stay as we are. We come as we are, but you’re not supposed to stay as you are. God is completing a good work of grace that he began in you. And so, every time you speak truth and love to one another, you realize you’re actually building up the body of Christ.
And so, what you do is you actually see all these other ordinary ways that maybe we take for granted are actually fundamentally profound ways to build friendships, something as simple as, I tell people, “Sit with your friend on a Sunday morning and worship with them,” right?

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah.

Jonathan Holmes:
Something as simple as physical presence as one worships God gets you ready for the future. You know? So, there are a lot of ways.
I think a lot of times people think about friendship as these really heroic, over-the-top acts of, “How can I prove my friendship?” We have this maybe over-realized ideal of a friendship that we’ve drawn from literature or from movies. And while friendship definitely has moments like that, I also think that it probably happens in just everyday moments like this as well.

Isaac Dagneau:
That’s so good. Jonathan, that wraps up our time now. But thank you so much. And I’m going to be putting the link to your book on the episode page so people can grab that as well.
And anyways, yeah, again, thank you for your time. Thank you for your wisdom and just sharing with us. And yeah, and I hope to have you back on the show again soon.

Jonathan Holmes:
All right. Thank you so much, Isaac, and I hope it was helpful for everyone.

Kourtney Cromwell:
Thank you so much for listening today. If you’re interested in Jonathan’s book at all, you can search for it at www.cruciformpress.com. The title of his book is The Company We Keep: In Search Of Biblical Friendship. We’ll also have the links for his book and his church on the episode page online.
I think this episode is really important for each one of us to consider our own friendships and relationships in general. And it does help as we look to next week, where Jonathan Holmes will be joining us once again on a brand-new episode, talking with Isaac about marriage and singleness. Whether you’re married already, currently in a relationship that’s heading toward marriage, or you’re single and hoping for marriage in the future, next week’s episode will be a helpful tool for you.
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Thanks so much for listening and joining us for this episode of indoubt, and I look forward to having you with us next week.

Kourtney Cromwell:
Thanks so much for listening. If you want to hear more, subscribe on iTunes and Spotify, or visit us online at indoubt.ca, or indoubt.com. We’re also on social media, so make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.