It’s at the heart of marriage. It’s the joy of singleness. It’s vital to gospel ministry. It’s key to cross-cultural encounter. Friendship Peel away the superficial modern meanings of friendship and dig down into the ancient sources and you find something very rich and strong. Reading Augustine’s Confessions I am struck by how hugely important (for good or ill) his friends were in his life. He lived with them and ate with them. He loved them deeply. Their life choices – work, travel, marriage, ethics, philosophy – were each other’s business. In many ways their friendships were similar to the covenanted friendship of David and Jonathan (1 Sam. 18:1-4 cf. Ruth 1:16) – intensely loyal, devoted, knit together. In one of his most extreme passages, Augustine speaks of his anguish after the death of his friend: “I, who had been like another self to him. It was well said that a friend is half one’s own soul. I felt that my soul and his had been but one soul in two bodies, and ...
Living and preaching at the foot of the Cross