Lynne Baab

Nurturing friendships in a cellphone world: Friendship as action

Lynne Baab • Thursday January 24 2019

The story of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) has profound implications for friendship. (Last week I described the significance of Jesus’ question to the Pharisee about being a neighbor.)

The challenge in friendship isn’t to figure out who is a friend. The challenge is to grow in ability to act like a friend. The actions that nurture friendships are intentional practices. These intentional acts of being a friend are rooted in the understanding that human friendship is an invitation to participate in the love that the three persons of the Trinity have for each other and the love that the triune God has for us. That love is most visible in Jesus Christ, who lived and died for us, and was raised from the dead to undo the forces of hate and evil in the world. That love is made real in our lives through the work of the Holy Spirit.

When we read the description of love in 1 Corinthians 13, those characteristics don’t come out of a vacuum. They come from God, are best exemplified in the person of Jesus Christ and are made real through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Scholars often point out that, in some ways 1 Corinthians 13 is a commentary on the life of Jesus. He alone is the one who defines love as this sort of love: patient, kind, rejoicing in the truth, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things and enduring all things. In Jesus, love never fails or ends. The four Gospels are full of stories that demonstrate the kind of love that reaches beyond itself and enters into another person’s world. To give just a few examples, Jesus touched a leper, talked with a Samaritan woman at length and set a crippled woman free from bondage (see Mark 1:41; John 4; Luke 13:10-17). All these actions required the ability to empathize with and enter into the other person’s emotions and situation.

Not only does Jesus exemplify this kind of love, he also enables us to love like this as we are remade in his image. Our ability to put on this kind of love, to clothe ourselves with it, comes first from clothing ourselves in Christ (see Romans 13:14; Galatians 3:27). Being clothed with Christ, putting on Christ, is a powerful metaphor for salvation, and clothing ourselves with Christ will enable us to grow in loving like he loves.

Jesus is our friend as the Savior of the world. Jesus is our friend as the one who lays down his life for his friends. Jesus invites us to follow him, to be the kind of friends who stick around when times are tough for others, to be the kind of friends who give and care and reach beyond ourselves. The depth of friendship we are offered in Jesus can be a foundation for friendship with the people we love.

The apostle Paul wrote, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. . . . Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Colossians 3:12, 14). We’ll be able to put on that clothing most easily when we know deeply and profoundly that we’re chosen and beloved by God.

Love is the belt buckle that holds on the new clothing that Paul describes in Colossians 3. The characteristics of the new clothing—compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience—aren’t utilitarian. They aren’t primarily a means to an end, although they do result in very good things. Instead they are rooted and established in love, the love that flows from God. They are a reflection of a deep and profound reality: the love of God for the creatures he made and holds in his hands.

Note the circle this creates. Paul calls us to compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, which are all bound up in love, which we learn from 1 Corinthian 13 is itself patient, kind and so on. We are clothed in loving patience when we are patient in our loving; we are clothed in loving kindness when we are kind in our loving. We become what we clothe ourselves in, and we clothe ourselves in our habits.

Let me say my main point again: The challenge in friendship isn’t to figure out who is a friend. The challenge is to grow in the ability to act like a friend.

This series on friendship in a cellphone world was excerpted from my book, Friending: Real Relationships in a Virtual World. The second half of the book describes the skills that help us act like a friend. Whether you read my whole book or not, I invite you to ponder the ways God is calling you to grow in actions that nurture friendship. (I am offering copies of the book at a discount price. It works well for small groups because it has discussion questions at the end. Contact me at LMBaab[at]aol.com if you’re interested.)

(Next week: some hymns that mention God or Jesus as our friend. Illustration by Dave Baab. If you’d like to receive an email when I post on this blog, sign up under “subscribe” in the right hand column of the whole webpage.)

This is the 11th post in a series. The previous posts are:

Nuturing friendships in a cellphone world                
Strong opinions and responses                 
My conversation partners about friendship          
Two views about commmunication technologies            
Changing defintions of friendship                 
Confidence about friendship                
Friendship with God                  
Jesus as friend                      
Friendship with Christ and friendship with others
Who is my neighbor?                         

Lynne M. Baab, Ph.D., is a teacher and writer. She has written numerous books, Bible study guides, and articles for magazines and journals. Lynne is passionate about prayer and other ways to draw near to God, and her writing conveys encouragement for readers to be their authentic selves before God. She encourages experimentation and lightness in Christians spiritual practices. Read more »

Lynne is pleased to announce the release of her book on grief and gratitude, designed to help people grieving from anything, including the pandemic, while also desiring to notice God's good gifts. Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian Life is available in paperback, audiobook, and for kindle. Lynne's 2018 book is Nurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care for the Twenty-First Century, and her best-selling book is Sabbath-Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest (now available as an audiobook as well as paperback and kindle). You can see her many other book titles here, along with her Bible study guides.

Lynne recently spoke about empathy and also about bringing spiritual practices to life.

Lynne was interviewed recently for the podcast "As the Crow Flies". The first episode focuses on why listening matters and the second one on listening skills. 

Here are two talks Lynne gave on listening (recorded in audio form on YouTube): Listening for Mission and Ministry and Why Listening Matters for Mission and Ministry.

"Lynne's writing is beautiful. Her tone has such a note of hope and excitement about growth. It is gentle and affirming."
— a reader

"Dear Dr. Baab, You changed my life. It is only through God’s gift of the sabbath that I feel in my heart and soul that God loves me apart from anything I do."
— a reader of Sabbath Keeping