Finding true friendship

I wonder if you’ve read C. S. Lewis’ The Four Loves? If you haven’t, you’ve got a treat to enjoy sometime. His chapter on friendship is a favourite of mine. It’s an insight-packed paean to friendship. And friendship is a vital part of our life together in Christ, a foretaste of what is to come.

A friendship is not the same thing as an exclusive coterie or cabal. “True Friendship,” says Lewis, “is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend.” The foundation for friendship, Lewis says, is companionship, which is what we often mean by the term “fellowship”. Companionship entails a basic willingness to get on and work well with others.

Friendship is more

Companionship is a necessary starting point. But that’s still not quite friendship. “Friendship,” Lewis adds, “arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest.” In other words, it takes shared interest to create the friendship. The one enables the other.