What the Bible says
What does the Bible say about friendship?
Scripture prizes faithful friendship: “a friend loves at all times” (Proverbs 17:17), and “faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6). The company we keep shapes us for good or ill (Proverbs 13:20; 1 Corinthians 15:33), and the greatest friend is Christ, who laid down his life for his friends and calls his disciples friends (John 15:13-15).
Key Bible verses about friendship
- Proverbs 17:17
A friend loves at all times; and a brother is born for adversity.
- Proverbs 18:24
A man of many companions may be ruined, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
- Proverbs 27:6
The wounds of a friend are faithful, although the kisses of an enemy are profuse.
- Proverbs 27:17
Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens his friend’s countenance.
- Proverbs 13:20
One who walks with wise men grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.
- Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up.
- 1 Samuel 18:1-3
When he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day, and wouldn’t let him go home to his father’s house any more. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.
- John 15:13-15
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you.
- 1 Corinthians 15:33
Don’t be deceived! “Evil companionships corrupt good morals.”
- Romans 12:10
In love of the brothers be tenderly affectionate to one another; in honor prefer one another,
- James 4:4
You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Scripture: World English Bible (public domain). Short quotations in the introduction are from the ESV. Read each passage in its chapter for the full context.
In the 1689 Baptist Confession
The Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 is our confessional standard. See what we believe.