Importance of Friends

“A friend loveth at all times, and brother is born for adversity,” (Proverbs 17:17) This indicates that friends are at least somewhat important. There are many occurrences of friendships in the Bible, some good and some not so good. Let’s investigate to see just how important friends are.

Let’s first look at various friendships in the Bible. How about we start with Jonathon and David. They were probably among the most spoken of friends in the Bible. Jonathon was the son of King Saul – his natural heir. David was who the Lord had selected to be the next King. Judging from this, you would think that two of them would be worst enemies, as they were both promised the throne, and only one could sit in it. Instead they were the best of friends. Jonathon didn’t begrudge David the throne one bit, and David didn’t mind that Jonathon’s father was trying to kill him every five minutes. Well, maybe he did mind, but it didn’t hinder his friendship with Jonathon. In fact, they promised that if either of them died, the survivor would take care of the other’s children, which David later did for Mephibosheth. Jonathon was even willing to face his father’s anger for David.

There are also some bad friendships. King Rehoboam had some friends that counseled him to rebuke the northern tribes of Israel harshly. This angered them, and caused the country to split.

This indicates that friends are very important to one’s life, for they will often affect one’s life far greater than many other things. They give you advice. They comfort you when you are sad. They will help you do things you can’t. They laugh with you when you are rejoicing.