Christians and Friendship

Dr. Michael Haykin did a series of lectures on Friendship at Third Avenue Baptist Church in the month of September in which he reminds Christians not only of the great value of friendships, but that throughout history they have been held with much higher regard than they are presently. Most Christian Theology texts contained a chapter on friendship, he remarked. In recent reading I have seen more of the truth of this matter.

I am currently working on a paper about John A. Broadus, the second president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a leading Baptist theologian in the 19th Century. About Broadus historian Tom Nettles writes:

Broadus also gained great admiration for the sincere attention he gave to friendships. Throughout his life, even from childhood, he beleived friendship to be the most cherished human gift to be given or recieved. Broadus loved and appreciated all sorts of people. He reveled in the diversity of gifts that God had given his church and in the richness that innumerable talents contributed to culture. He was often asked to deliver funeral addresses and present memorials precisely because his depth of insight and his great gift of friendship allowed him to be clearly honest in his assesment of any person while unfolding the uniqueness of the contribution of his subjects.

May we all not only take friendship with such seriousness, but may we leave behind a legacy of friendship and of the admiration of friendship.