Two Are Better Than One
“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
One of the most influential books on my thinking on friendship when I was a young Christian was The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis. I came to Christ when I was 15 and had one foot in the church and one foot in the world through most of high school. A couple of years after graduating I recommitted my life to the Lord and within a short time I found myself at Toccoa Falls College. Not knowing any better, I took a 400 level English class on the writings of C.S. Lewis my first semester in school! There were 19 books to read in 14 weeks, with one of them being this book. It started me on a lifelong quest for godly Christian friends.
“Friendship (as the ancients saw) can be a school of virtue; but also (as they did not see) a school of vice. It is ambivalent. It makes good men better and bad men worse.”
(C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1960, 1988, 2012. 51 of 88, iBook)
“To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it. We admit of course that besides a wife and family a man needs a few “friends.” But the very tone of the admission, and the sort of acquaintanceships which those who make it would describe as “friendships,” show clearly that what they are talking about has very little to do with that Philia which Aristotle classified among the virtues or that Amicitia on which Cicero wrote a book. It is something quite marginal; not a main course in life’s banquet; a diversion; something that fills up the chinks of one’s time. How has this come about?”
(Lewis 37 of 88, emphasis added)
He answers his question by saying this, “The first and most obvious answer is that few value it because few experience it.” (ibid.) When I first read this, I was unsure if that was really true. Of course, I was in a small Christian college where friendships came easily. I later found out, that especially for men, high school and college are the high point in their friendships. As men get older, they tend to get busy with work and then family and most deep friendships fade away not to be replaced. One author, Stu Weber, commented that the average man could find 6 people to be pall bearers but didn’t have one friend he could call at 1:00 AM if he was in crisis.
Another speaker I heard around the same time as reading the C.S. Lewis book talked about four concentric circles, like a target, and described four kinds of “friends.” The first, on the outermost circle he called, “acquaintances.” These are people you recognize and might say hi but there is no depth of relationship. The next inner circle he called, “fair-weather friends.” Maybe co-workers and fellow students that you see in the cafeteria or take a break together. You might even go on vacation with them and carry on conversations but the topics remain safe. The next to smallest circle he called, “close friends.” He said these people know a lot about you but there are still areas that you keep secret or are closed off. The smallest circle was “bosom friends,” using the word in the old fashion sense of those who are closest to your heart. Usually there are maybe two or three that fall in this category. These are people who know a lot about you in a lot of different areas. You drop your guard around them and they know everything about you. They know your hopes and fears. They can ask you anything and you answer them truthfully and transparently.
I want to encourage you to cultivate the friendships you have and be open to developing new ones. I am grateful for the friendships that I have had for decades and the new friendships that I continue to make.
