“The greatest expression of love is laying down our lives for God (as martyrs) and for one another (as fellow servants and friends).”
Love
In no uncertain terms, Jesus established the heart of missionary discipleship: we are called to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love one another as ourselves (see Matthew 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34). These two commandments sum up the law and the prophets of the Old Testament. “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16), and love will endure to eternal life (see 1 Corinthians 13:8, 13). Above everything else, we are called to clothe ourselves in love for one another (see Colossians 3: 14).
Simply put, the true measure of our discipleship is how well we love. If we seek to cultivate a vision for lifelong discipleship, if our aim is to form mature disciples, then we must make love our aim (see 1 Corinthians 14:1) and seek to grow in charity (see 1 Thessalonians 3:12). If we fail in love, then our labors for the kingdom of God will not amount to much (see 1 Corinthians 13:1-3). And the greatest expression of love is laying down our lives for God (as martyrs) and for one another (as fellow servants and friends).
Friendship with One Another
In an age of hyper-individualism, when more and more people are living alone and fewer people are having children, we believe it is essential to form disciples who know what it means to live in committed communities of mutual friendship. Real friendship, grounded in Christ, is an important antidote to a world marked by superficial relationships and terminal loneliness. If we seek to raise up missionary disciples but fail to help these disciples form communities of friends, then something essential is lacking. If we hope to fulfill the command to love one another, then we need to be in real communities that call forth sacrificial love.
The First Letter of John teaches us that if we fail to love our brother or sister whom we see, then we cannot claim to love God, whom we cannot see (see 4:20). By building committed communities of friends – and forming others to do so – we not only learn what it means to love one another but also learn more deeply what it means to love God.
Friendship has become a very hot topic today-and rightly so. The TV sitcom Friends, one of the most widely watched TV series on record, portrayed a felt need to form a community of friends amid an increasingly rootless society. The drive to gather hundreds of friends on social media reflects a contemporary thirst for friendship – for belonging and identity. We live in a world deeply hungry, even desperate, for friendship, but real friendship remains in short supply.
The plight of same-sex attracted people should cause us all to think more deeply about the importance of friendship. In a culture that glorifies sex and considers sexual expression essential to personal happiness, many argue that it is unfair and unreasonable to ask same-sex attracted people to refrain from sexual activity. The underlying assumption is that true human happiness requires a sexual partner of one’s own choosing. This is assumed to be a basic human right.
To counter this view, many same-sex attracted Christians have spoken out with great courage about their commitment to follow Christ’s teaching on sexuality and so refrain from same-sex activity. But they also describe the loneliness and isolation they often experience, even within the Church. Their situation has put the spotlight on the need to rejuvenate a vision for non-erotic friendships that bring life and fulfillment-and this need is not only for same-sex attracted people but for all Christians.
Friendship – God’s gift to his people
Friendship is a gift of God to his people. Consequently, to communicate the nature of true friendship in Christ, to gain wisdom about how to form such friendships, and to enkindle enthusiasm for building committed communities where friendship in Christ will be valued and cultivated are critical pastoral priorities for today.
Christian discipleship thrives in a communal context. We are not lone Christians walking a solitary pilgrimage of faith. Rather we are banded together with other companions in a common pilgrimage-serving together, standing together against a common foe, and helping each other thrive along the way.
Crucially, our friendships in Christ are not merely instrumental, not just things that help us make progress on the path. The goal of eternal life is communion (koinonia) with God and with one another. Our friendships here in this life are the training ground and foretaste of the friendships that will be ours eternally. Christian discipleship, at its core, is also a school of friendship.
But the casual, informal model of friendship on offer today simply won’t provide what we need. When personal compatibility and common interest alone provide the grounds for friendship, we are building on shifting sands that won’t weather the storms that will come. Even within marriage, committed love provides the primary anchor for the development of friendship between the spouses, not the other way around. If friendship is to flourish, then we need to cultivate committed communities of disciples who gather, not primarily in fact for friendship, but to love and serve God and advance the mission of the Gospel. In such settings, friendships can develop easily and naturally.
In this “rnissional” context, a wide variety of friendships can flourish – some stronger, some more modest – without the intense pressure that often accompanies gatherings of people who are primarily seeking friendship as their goal. Families will naturally be the bedrock of these committed communities, but ample space should be made for singles, young and old, who are full members, not second-class citizens of the Christian community.
We might ask ourselves: “Who are the people that I am called to befriend? Who are the people God has placed in my life to be friends for the journey, gifts from his hand? And how can I nourish these friendships and recognize the great gifts that they are?”
Christ – who has called us to be his friends – is our model and guide. And the Holy Spirit is the person (and power) living within us who teaches and directs us in forming friendships that reflect and participate in the Trinitarian communion of love.
This article © by Dan Keating is adapted from the book Called to Christian Joy and Maturity by Daniel A. Keating and Gordy C. DeMarais, published in 2021 by The Word Among Us Press, Fredrick, Maryland, USA. Used with permission.
See related articles: by Dan Keating:
- True and False Conceptions of Christian Love, by Steve Clark
- Faith, Hope, and Love in the Path of Discipleship, by Dan Keating
- What We Love, We Grow to Resemble, by Jerome Quiring
- Christian Community – A Reality Created by God, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- Love One Another with Brotherly Affection, Respect, and Willing Service, by Steve Clark
Top image credit: Christian retreat in Europe for university students, photo courtesy of Kairos archives © Kairos-EME 2026.
Dan Keating, (DPhil, Oxford University, UK) is an elder in The Servants of the Word, an ecumenical international brotherhood of men living single for the Lord. He is a professor of theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan, USA where he teaches on Scripture, the Church Fathers, evangelization, and ecumenism.