Gregory of Nazianzus said of his good friend Basil in the fourth century AD that they “seemed to be two bodies with a single spirit.” Likewise, Aristotle defined friendship as “one soul inhabiting two bodies.” Without fail, we share the lives of our friends and they ours, for good and for ill.
That’s why Solomon so warns his son, and by extension us, to be wise when we make friends. He says in Proverbs 13:20 “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” Or in Proverbs 28:7 “The one who keeps the law is a son with understanding, but a companion of gluttons shames his father.”
God made friendship a mutual sharing of life, a two-way street. That’s as it should be. But because we are so indelibly shaped by the friends we make, Solomon says, we need to be careful to not make certain kinds of friends. The sage king writes in Proverbs 22:24-25,
Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.
A couple of interesting notes on this verse: First, the “man given to anger” is literally “a baal/lord of anger” in Hebrew. This is an ancient Hebraic way of describing someone’s character, to say they are a “master of this thing.” Or, in some cases, mastered by it. Here, the person Solomon warns us against befriending is someone who has been consumed by anger, whose life is owned by their venomous wrath towards others.
Second, the word for “learn” means to become so familiar with it that you absorb it yourself. It’s learning by osmosis. This quick-tempered friend won’t sit down and tell you, “Now, here’s how you can really blow a gasket this week.” No, you’ll just pick up his or her habits as you go along. Their speech might at first seem to you to be off-putting and harsh, but then slowly, as you’re around the friend more and more, you’ll start to think of this explosive anger as actually quite normal. Eventually, rage will be entirely justifiable.
But notice the way Solomon ends this proverb: “entangle yourself in a snare.” If you befriend this irate mate, you’re trapping yourself. You set up the net, then you walked right into it. You’ve destroyed yourself through the influence that you’ve chosen.
And what is that snare? That you become an angry person, too. Because we share our lives with our friends, we become like our friends. Or, as Paul says, “Bad company ruins good morals” (1 Cor 15:33).
You might say, though, what about my evangelistic friendship with my testy co-worker or my hot-headed neighbor? Am I supposed to just abandon them? Of course not! How many saints through church history can trace their conversion to the enduring love of a Christian friend? The world needs your salt and light, and it often comes through friendship.
But notice Solomon’s language: “nor go with a wrathful man.” Meaning, don’t go in the same direction as him or yoke yourself to him. Peter says that even in our evangelistic zeal, we must be careful not to “join them in the same flood of debauchery” (1 Pet 4:4) or, as David says, “to walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, not sit in the seat of scoffers” (Ps 1:1). As fallen creatures, our sinful flesh is looking for any excuse – perhaps a close friend – to justify our self-serving desires. There is a gravity in our nature pulling us down, and we would be wise to be watchful over it, especially in our influential friendships. If you go with the angry, likely as not, you’ll become angry, too.
As a pastor, I have seen several iterations of this principle played out in the life of the church. Friends have far more power to sculpt and shape our thinking, our affections, and even our beliefs than we realize. Those who choose friends wisely – even friends who will correct us – will reap the harvest. Those who sow in the fields of anger will reap the same.
So, in our eagerness to love the lost and reach the least, in our good and earnest desire to befriend the lonely and sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others, let us also exercise some wise, biblical caution. If you will become like your friends, what kind of close friends do you have? On the other hand, are there any dear, humble, peacemaking saints in the church you can befriend? Who are your friends? Whose life are you sharing? Like whom are you becoming?
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