It’s ironic to read a new book about friendship and end up feeling lonely.
Not lonely in the sense of being friendless, but spiritually lonely at church most Sunday mornings.
I rarely find conversations lasting longer than five minutes. Most never mention the sermon. Everyone seems “good” but “busy”. Work is the safe go-to topic. Someone taps you on the shoulder to say “Hello” only because you’re blocking their way to the coffee. One son needs his hand taken away from the cupcakes. The other is bawling. Before long, you’re out the front door, pining for something more…
Depth. Accountability. Honesty. Purpose.
And I know I’m not alone. An assistant pastor of a 1000-strong church admitted at a men’s night he had a phone full of contacts, but not a single close friend checking up on him.
Why is this happening? British-American writer Rebecca McLaughlin’s piercing new book, No Greater Love, gives a brutal yet honest assessment: too many Christian friendships are self-serving, rather than Christ-serving. We forget that Jesus didn’t draw his 12 disciples to himself to form a book club or footy team.
No Greater Love: A Biblical Vision For Friendship
Rebecca McLaughlin
No Greater Love: A Biblical Vision For Friendship
Rebecca McLaughlin
Greater love has no one than this: that he lay down his life for his friends. – John 15:13
Our culture idolizes romance and the love of parents for their children. But Jesus said there was no greater love than sacrificial friendship love. What’s more, He issued a command to His disciples that they live into this kind of love. Christian friendship isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s vital. But it’s also dangerous.
In No Greater Love, Rebecca McLaughlin walks us through the highs and lows of friendship love—a love that’s been neglected and malnourished in our modern world.
Soldiers in Arms
Genuine Christian friendship isn’t The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants or the annual men’s golfing event. Closeness is formed by marching side-by-side through the spiritual battles we all face. Churches aren’t social clubs, but war rooms:
We are not called to foster friendships for their own sake. Rather, Christian friendships are designed to help us fight. Fellow soldiers come alongside each other in the battle. They spur each other on and have each other’s backs, and we will need our fellow soldiers in the Lord as we resist an enemy who is far beyond our strength. (62)
McLaughlin’s criticism is a gut punch for several reasons. First, it’s countercultural. Second, it challenges church culture. No more superficial conversations. No more friendship bubbles. No more seeking out the most important person in the room. We must actively befriend people unlike us and invite them into our lives. Third, it requires long-term commitment. And fourth, and most importantly, it correctly puts Jesus and the gospel at the centre of every Christian friendship.
McLaughlin forces readers to ask: are my Christian friendships about building private jokes or building God’s kingdom?
McLaughlin forces readers to ask: are my Christian friendships about building private jokes or building God’s kingdom?
Paul’s letters to Timothy, for example, aren’t postcards from Rome asking Timothy if he wants to join him at the Faleria amphitheatre for a drink of posca. They’re encouraging the younger leader to suffer like a good soldier of Jesus Christ (2 Tim 2:3–4).
As McLaughlin asserts,
Friendship is a vehicle for the gospel in the sense that it’s cross-shaped: formed for life laid down in love for others, just as Jesus laid down his own life for us. (26)
Friendship is Missional
Mission is the “throbbing heart” of Christian friendship—McLaughlin’s strongest and most confronting argument. Our closest friendships, she says, should be gospel-spreading partnerships. It’s what distinguishes them from our wider, secular friendships.
Many will blanch at such an idea, fearing it means joining together to evangelise complete strangers (which is easier with friends).
But that’s not McLaughlin’s focus. She grounds her argument in Philippians 2, in which Paul sends “fellow soldier” Epaphroditus back home to help the Philippian church, and Philemon, which is addressed in part to “Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house” (Phm 2). Mission is everyday living. It’s going into our jobs, schools, universities, and communities, and showcasing Christ through how we act, speak and love.
Even in these mundane interactions, soldiers can be belittled, wounded, demoralised, and even lost, as witnessed by the increasing number of deconversions today. Battle-hardened Christian friends, however, spur each other on and bind each other’s wounds, McLaughlin says.
Friendship is Outward
McLaughlin has no time for “inner rings” or “cliques” that form in our churches. There’s a place for hanging out with people we naturally like, she argues, but speaking to the same people shrinks your witness and care towards others. You become inward-looking, rather than outward. And that breaks Jesus’s clear command: “Love each other as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12).
Instead, it means actively seeking people on the fringes of church: believers who scurry out the door before the last song finishes, the broken, or those who no one talks to.
The energy we gain from those who fill us up can make us able to pour ourselves out in welcome to the lonely and unloved. But if, in our spare time, we only consort with people we like, we won’t include the outcasts. (76)
Drawing on both Jesus and Romans 15:7, McLaughlin encourages us to stop asking “Who will love me?” and instead ask, “Who can I love?” (82).
McLaughlin encourages us to stop asking “Who will love me?” and instead ask, “Who can I love?”
Friendship is Strengthening
Likewise, she also calls on people who see Christian friendship as an optional extra—believers who deliberately avoid investing in others. Genuine friendship fuels, revives, delights, and grows us because it is an echo of Jesus’s greater love for us.
Echoing 1 Corinthians 12, she uses medieval chain mail armour as an illustration. Every tiny circle intersects with each other on every side; the armour depends on these connections coming together. As a body of believers, we can only do the work of God if we reach out to others and include them. We all have different levels of capacity and need, so we need to draw on the strength of others. To think we’re self-sufficient is the sin of pride.
Only Jesus can meet everybody’s needs, she reminds us. But if we link together, we have the resources to carry each other’s burdens (Gal 6:2), thanks to the strength God gives us collectively.
I can’t do Christian friendship without Jesus. Neither can you. Without Jesus’ help, we’ll fail at fighting the good fight. We’ll cling to idols and form selfish inner rings. We’ll hate the discipline of mutual accountability and love the snugness and superiority that comes from leaving others out. We’ll play it safe because we cannot face the vulnerability of closeness, and so we’ll miss the chance to find our very heart in friends who love the Lord with all of theirs. (160)
The Friendless Elephant
McLaughlin doesn’t wag her finger. She has a heartfelt desire for Christ’s love and joy to be shared among all of his people and Christians to grow deeper in faith together. However, her arguments could’ve been fortified by being bookended with Genesis 1:27 and Revelation 19:6–9. Knowing everyone is made in the image of God, paired with the reality that the lonely, outcasts and those completely unlike us will be worshipping Jesus beside us in the New Creation, would be powerful motivators for investing in friendships now.
McLaughlin also discusses the need for more healthy platonic relationships between men and women in today’s church—a laudable topic indeed. But she misses the elephant in the room awkwardly sipping a cuppa alone: Christian men today struggle to connect with other men, let alone women. They might be soldiers in a battle, but few are marching side-by-side or being accountable to each other. It’s a quibble, but a few pages exploring how both genders make platonic friends would’ve added just that bit more spit and polish to an already excellent work.
Ultimately, No Greater Love is a brutally honest, heartfelt and overdue call for Christians seeking more than milk-and-two-sugar friendships. It’s cutting, but wounds from a friend can indeed be trusted (Prov 27:6).
