Dark Friendships

[Scrawly]

Can you look at the passages in the NT where Jesus associated with sinners and believe that He was cultivating close friendships? Only if you are dishonest.

I am sincerely asking questions and trying to wade through difficult and sensitive issues. You are questioning my motives and accusing me - something you shouldn't be doing so nonchalantly. Please try and participate in the discussion with a degree of level headedness or refrain from commenting.

[Scrawly]

I think it might be good to define "friendships", as there are vast degrees of... I have had "friends" at work that are nowhere near as close as the "friends" at Church.

We are to be IN this world, but not OF this world... I'm not "yoked" to my friends at my former work to the degree that I am "yoked" with my friends at Church.

Yes this seems to be the biblical view. I likewise do the same not really in an intentional way, it just happens because I find that unbelievers simply do not really want to be around genuine Christian's - we are the stench of death to those who are perishing after all. Yet I also want to show them love and make a good impression for the cause of Christ as well. So I find it's a difficult balance at times.

[Obsidian]

Regardless of the context of 2 Corinthians 6, which is rather unclear, there are other verses that prohibit marriages to unbelievers, and there are verses that discourage friendships with fools, the world, etc.

Amos 3:3
Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

[Scrawly]

Dark friendships...you make it sound as if unbelievers consort with demons of the stygian abyss or something.

Haha, not my intention, title's ought to grab your attention, right? Yet doesn't Paul refer to believer's as light and unbeliever's as darkness in 2Cor. 6:14-15?

[Scrawly]

I consider all my friends and everyone I meet as potential Christians or quite possibly better human beings than me. I've never worried about friends endangering my faith, but maybe that's because I'm an old guy who's studied and learned a whole lot of stuff from a lot of people in my life, none of which ever seemed dangerous to me. I think we are called to be friends with sinners in the same way as Jesus was and is a friend of sinners. St Thomas Aquinas considered friendship to be the highest form of love, even love of God.

This is a great way to function and seems to be a mature view of things, however, how do you read 2Cor. 6:14-15?

[Scrawly]

Judas had a role to play, plus he did feign belief. Still I did not say any thing about not allowing unbelieving friends. How else can you share Christ? The point is cultivating unbelievers just as close friends with an assumption of some sort of equality.

My post specifically addressed Scrawly's attempt to create a division. He quite normally does that, asking phoney questions to create argument.

Wow, you really need to stop. I think a warning from the mods is in order. Create division? Phoney questions? Create argument? My friend, this is a online forum for Christian's to discuss things - this is exactly what we are doing. The only one causing problems here is you.

[Scrawly]

How about a Christian man asking a woman he does not know for a date? He does not ask, "Are you Christian?"

I think getting to know someone before dating is the proper course of things. Within that period of "getting to know", usually worldview/faith questions should be brought into the forefront.

[robrecht]

This is a great way to function and seems to be a mature view of things, however, how do you read 2Cor. 6:14-15?

I don't think this passage is about friendship. If I am friends with someone, I love them freely, that is what is seen to be superior in friendship as a form of love, but loving someone 'freely' is not being 'yoked' to someone, rather the opposite. Who says this is about friendship? Many translation imply this, eg, the NRSV:

Or what does a believer share with an unbeliever?

But the Greek doesn't necessarily say that:

ἢ τίς μερὶς πιστῷ μετὰ ἀπίστου;

I would translate this as something more like 'or what part (does) a trustworthy or true one (share) with an untrustworthy or false one?' It is one of a few rhetorical question meant to illustrate not being yoked with one of another kind. Perhaps this relates as an abstract rhetorical question to do with some of the Corinthians being yoked to other 'apostles', but I don't see any indication that is a specific teaching about who one can choose as friends. Paul does use the adjectie πιστός several times to speak of the faithfulness of God and the trustworthyness of his ministry.

[Obsidian]

The idea of being yoked implies doing work, like an ox. Hence, it probably is referring to ministry.

[robrecht]

The idea of being yoked implies doing work, like an ox. Hence, it probably is referring to ministry.

And Paul used the analogy of an ox for Christian ministry in his first letter to the Corinthians, and his ministry and relationship with the Corinthians seems to be the focus of this context.

[Cow Poke]

How about a Christian man asking a woman he does not know for a date? He does not ask, "Are you Christian?"

I did. On our first date, I asked my wife-to-be about her faith, and she accepted Christ.

[seanD]

The idea of being yoked implies doing work, like an ox. Hence, it probably is referring to ministry.

That seems like an oxymoron. Why would an unbeliever be involved in a ministry? Can you see someone like Tassman working for a church lol?

[apostoli]

My following comment might be a bit offside of the current dialogue...

My near neighbours are pretty well all Muslims, and they are undergoing Ramadan. I was chatting with my neighbour yesterday and acknowledged their fast and explained that in the RCC we have something similiar which we call Lent. He was very impressed that for 40days we give up something that is personally important and he was amazed that whatever that could be, it was a personal choice not a direct imposition of our religion... So in friendly dialogue, in my experience, you don't have to ram your religion down someone's throat, just be gentle and honest - who knows they might find Christ through your gentleness...

Imo, Dark Friendships are just a fact of human existence...not everyone will share your viewpoint.

A few years ago my neighbour and I shook hands to agree to disagree, but at all times we are obligated to think on each others opinion...and treat each other warmly....(he and his family are Muslim, and the most excellent neighbours. Even voluntarily mowing my lawns while I was in hospital, when all I asked of them was to collect my mail).

[Scrawly]

I don't think this passage is about friendship. If I am friends with someone, I love them freely, that is what is seen to be superior in friendship as a form of love, but loving someone 'freely' is not being 'yoked' to someone, rather the opposite. Who says this is about friendship?

Wouldn't yoke simply mean "join together"? The passage in 2Cor. might not be strictly about friendship, but it does strike me as warning against being in "close relations" with unbelievers.

Many translation imply this, eg, the NRSV:

Or what does a believer share with an unbeliever?

But the Greek doesn't necessarily say that:

ἢ τίς μερὶς πιστῷ μετὰ ἀπίστου;

I would translate this as something more like 'or what part (does) a trustworthy or true one (share) with an untrustworthy or false one?' It is one of a few rhetorical question meant to illustrate not being yoked with one of another kind. Perhaps this relates as an abstract rhetorical question to do with some of the Corinthians being yoked to other 'apostles', but I don't see any indication that is a specific teaching about who one can choose as friends. Paul does use the adjectie πιστός several times to speak of the faithfulness of God and the trustworthyness of his ministry.

That's interesting, but why do you think the translation teams, comprised of Greek scholars from a variety of denominational backgrounds, all seemingly translate those verses with the believer/unbeliever contrast?

[Scrawly]

My following comment might be a bit offside of the current dialogue...

My near neighbours are pretty well all Muslims, and they are undergoing Ramadan. I was chatting with my neighbour yesterday and acknowledged their fast and explained that in the RCC we have something similiar which we call Lent. He was very impressed that for 40days we give up something that is personally important and he was amazed that whatever that could be, it was a personal choice not a direct imposition of our religion... So in friendly dialogue, in my experience, you don't have to ram your religion down someone's throat, just be gentle and honest - who knows they might find Christ through your gentleness...

Imo, Dark Friendships are just a fact of human existence...not everyone will share your viewpoint.

A few years ago my neighbour and I shook hands to agree to disagree, but at all times we are obligated to think on each others opinion...and treat each other warmly....(he and his family are Muslim, and the most excellent neighbours. Even voluntarily mowing my lawns while I was in hospital, when all I asked of them was to collect my mail).

Thanks for sharing your experience Apostoli. You seem to be putting into practice the admonishment of Romans 12:18: "If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men."