Week 4: Dangerous Friendships
Monday: Counterfeit Friendships
Read: Proverbs 17:9, Romans 16:17-18, 2 Timothy 3:2-5
SOAP: Romans 16:17-18
Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who create dissensions and obstacles contrary to the teaching that you learned. Avoid them! For these are the kind who do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By their smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of the naive.
Devotion:
The early church and our current churches face a similar problem: people who are only interested in serving themselves. Dissension and disunity are the common result of people who are not interested in working toward a common goal but instead work toward fulfilling their own desires. These people may look the part and say all the right things, but underneath the veneer, they are only interested in their own status or power.
We may have friends who operate the same way by putting on a false face of friendship without any real substance. While this passage warns the church against false teaching, it also points to a general human tendency to serve our own interests above all else—and to use deceptive speech to hide it. Just as we do not want to be the kind of friends who seek reciprocity—I’ll extend kindness just as far as I know you can repay it—we also want to guard ourselves against friends like this. These false friends can cause dissension among real friends by gossiping and inciting conflict. We can ask God for wisdom to guard our friendships against discord and superficiality.
Prayer:
God, help me to accurately assess my relationships and bring my concerns to You. Give me good friends who speak truth. Amen.