The Sharp Friend: A Symbol of Strength and Resilience

The last bouquet of red roses is wilted, and Valentine’s Day is in our rearview mirrors. But, I’m still pondering this emotion we call love. The red, purple, and pink decorating the stores causes us to think about romantic love in February, but many of our relationships aren’t romantic. Of course, loving our family and our friends is not romantic love, but a different love. Philia, or brotherly love in the Greek translation, is friendship love. What is brotherly love?

Friendship Qualifications

So, what qualifications do you need to be a friend? What characteristics does a friend require? Fashionable dress? Money? Popularity?  No. Neither clothes, bank accounts, nor social media status are worthy considerations when choosing friends.

Even if you don’t realize it, a true friend is kind, encouraging, patient, compassionate, and faithful. With a true friend, we have someone to celebrate the good and talk with through the bad. We have a person to listen to our chatter about the mundane and the important. In other words, friends laugh together, cry together, and ask one another for advice. Friends stay connected. Friends are resilient.

Stop and think through your dearest friends. Who is

 

the one you could confess your deepest regret to, and they’d still love you? Other than your spouse, who is the friend you’d commission to care for your children? Who do you want at your deathbed?

Now, close your eyes and picture the philia friend; the one of brotherly love—the symbol of strength and resilience.

Who is Your Friend of Steel?

Is there one person trustworthy enough that you would permit them to speak the truth to you– in love? The friend you’d count on to help you mature emotionally, professionally, spiritually? That person is the lifelong friend. The Bible speaks about this type of friendship.

“So one man sharpens [and influences] another [through discussion].”

Proverbs 27:17 AMP

Through comparison of other Biblical interpretations, we’ll broaden the meaning and understand the full impact of the proverb. Here are several translations of Proverbs 27:17 to enlighten us.

As iron sharpens iron,

so a man sharpens the countenance of his friends. NKJV

As iron sharpens iron,

so people can improve each other. NCV

As iron sharpens iron,

so a friend sharpens a friend. NLT

Just as iron sharpens iron, friends sharpen the minds of each other. CEV

In the same way that iron sharpens iron,

a person sharpens the character of his friend. VOICE

A friendly discussion is as stimulating as the sparks that fly when iron strikes iron. TLB

In other words, through discussion, we embody the power to sharpen, or improve, the countenance, the mind, and even the character of a friend. Our responsibility in our friends’ lives is not trite. Words carry power.

The Science of Iron

Metallurgists are metal specialists who work with aluminum, iron, copper, and steel. When iron is extracted from the earth, the product is iron ore. The process of mining iron involves drilling, blasting, hauling, crushing, and screening. The iron is encased in a rock—ore —from which the metallic iron is extracted.

Most often, metallurgists work with mixing metals or alloys to create a new material, such as steel. Iron ore is smelted in furnaces to remove impurities and add carbon to make steel. Without iron, metallurgists can’t produce steel.

Consequently, ninety-eight percent of iron is used to make steel, a stronger and useful material. Our everyday lives depend on steel products—vehicles, appliances, utensils, medical machinery and devices, commercial and residential construction, farming equipment, transportation, power, infrastructure, and our national defense.

What does iron have to do with friendship?

          Iron creates steel. Steel is strong. Steel is useful. We hone or sharpen a knife to make it more effective, acute, or smooth. Like iron, friends sharpen friends; make them stronger.

            Receiving encouragement, wisdom, a cheerful word, and a smile feels good. Let me ask, though, are we prepared to give advice, affirm feelings, and encourage rather than just receive? Are we ready to be a friend that sharpens?

            As we’ve read, friend sharpening is an important and impactful duty. My challenge for us today is to pray for a friend to sharpen. Instead of waiting for someone to fill you, be the person who influences the life of a friend for good.

Resources for Brotherly Love Kind of Friends

I’ve always told my children that you can’t have too many friends, but caution is needed. Due to other’s influence, we must consider the friend’s character before we allow them the responsibility of being a friend-sharpening-friend. Did you ever consider going to the Bible to find out the characteristics of friends? The Bible speaks about the benefits and the drawbacks of friends. Good and bad. The weak and the resilient.

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24 NIV

Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and a person’s advice is sweet to his friend.

Proverbs 27:9 NASB

Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it.

Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good.

Be a good friend who loves deeply; practice playing second fiddle. Romans 12:10 The Message

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  John 15:12 NIV

A friend loves at all times and is born, as is a brother, for adversity. Proverbs 17:17 AMPC

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

I Thessalonians 5:11 NIV

Our Challenge

Most importantly, are you the kind of friend the Bible describes? And so, let us pray for love and the wisdom needed to pour into the life of another and see what God does.

            “When we think of friends, and call their faces out of the shadows, and their voices out of the echoes that faint along the corridors of memory, and do it without knowing why save that we love to do it, we content ourselves that that friendship is a Reality, and not a Fancy—that it is builded upon a rock, and not upon the sands that dissolve away with the ebbing tides and carry their monuments with them.” Mark Twain

Friendship is brotherly love—the friends of strength and resilience.

 Go. Be the iron. Forge friendships and create bonds as strong as steel.

 

Tell me your stories of brotherly love.