Lane Corley

Bryan Loritts provides a great challenge to build relationships that last in his new book Enduring Friendships: Sticking Together in an Age of Unfriending. The book uses Paul’s New Testament letter to Philemon as a backdrop for thinking deeply about friendship. And it does challenge us to think deeply about our relationships. Onesimus, the slave to Philemon, who likely stole and then ran away from his servitude, making him deserving of severe consequences if not death. Philemon, the enslaver, and partner in the gospel with Paul. Paul, the missionary, who led both of these men to Christ and now pleads with them to do hard things for their relationship and for the glory of God.

• He wants Onesimus to repent and go back and face his offended enslaver.
• He wants Philemon to repent and receive Onesimus, not as a slave who stole from him, but as a brother who merits his embrace and partnership.
• Paul himself wants to pay whatever is owed to Philemon. “Put it on my account.”

We don’t know “the rest of the story”, but can imagine that repentance was had, forgiveness was extended, and God was glorified, because Onesimus is later counted as a Bishop in the early church.

This book reminds us that relationships are hard but worth fighting for. And enduring relationships are costly and take courage to pursue through the messiness of life. What a mess the book of Philemon offers up. But what a beautiful picture of grace and forgiveness if Paul’s formula is lived out. The offender repents, the offended forgives, and the beauty of reconciliation is witnessed by all.

I wish I could say I didn’t have any tangled messes of relationships in my 49 years, but I can’t. I wish I could say that I’ve always done the right and hard thing for the sake of reconciliation. In ministry, the slights received often make us callous toward deep relationships and make it easier just to let people walk away or not make the journey back to the one we offended. People come and go. Sometimes close relationships are resisted because we begin to expect slights, disrespect, betrayal, and eventual departure. Enduring Friendships reminds us that relationships are worth it.

The key to it all of course is Jesus. He empowers us to forgive, to receive grace, and to repent. And he did the hardest thing of all so that we could experience reconciliation by offering up his own body on the cross.

Some great thinking and maturing to be stirred up by Bryan Loritts’ new book. Grab a copy.

Here’s a few of my favorite quotes:

1. Soul-level friendship often feels like a full-time job with periods of bad compensation.
2. The problem is relationships are drama, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. Whose life is not made up of mountaintops and deep valleys? If we’re not up for drama, we are not ready for relationships.
3. A Christian who does not forgive is a contradiction in terms.
4. There is no lasting friendship without grace.
5. If you want to have sustained friendships over the course of your life, you must accept that you will at various points be Onesimus and Philemon – offender and offended.
6. When we fail to allow for nuance and complication, we set the table for short-lived friendships that never resurrect from the graveyard of offense and betrayal.
7. The journey of friendship is fraught with unavoidable hurt because those involved are marred by sin.
8. Gossip is saying something behind a person’s back we would never say to a person’s face. Flattery is saying something to a person’s face we would never say behind their back.
9. Pride is the #1 killer of friendship. Humility is the prime nourisher of healthy relationships.
10. When we are at death’s door and inevitably stare into the rearview mirror of our lives, we will not take joy in our acts of retribution.
11. An ungracious Christian is an oxymoron.
12. nothing illumines our witness and stands more in contradistinction to our world than when we fight to remain at the table of friendship with people who we have wronged and who have wronged us.