# 436 The Proverbs – ‘A manual for living’ (MSG). Proverbs 13 (3). Your friends – helpful or ‘toxic’?

Have you ever been concerned about the company you or someone you love is keeping? One particular proverb worth considering is verse 20 which says:

²⁰ Walk with the wise and become wise,
    for a companion of fools suffers harm.

When I was young, where we lived, some (but not all) of our companions were not so great as regards their attitudes and behaviour. Possibly they thought the same about us! Unfortunately, one of my brothers had particularly ‘toxic’ friends and they all eventually got into trouble with the police. In fact, at the age of only 16, he and some friends stole motor bikes and headed east. Inevitably, they were caught and my brother ended up in a youth detention centre for a few years. This confirming the second part of the proverb above.

Similar advice is also given in other places in Proverbs as follows:

My son, if you accept my words
    and store up my commands within you,
² turning your ear to wisdom
    and applying your heart to understanding …

²⁰ Thus you will walk in the ways of the good
    and keep to the paths of the righteous. (2:1-2, 20)

The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray. (Proverbs 12:26)

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin. (Proverbs 18:24)

²⁴ Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person,
    do not associate with one easily angered,
²⁵ or you may learn their ways
    and get yourself ensnared.  (22:24-25)

Paul sums it up in his quote from “the Greek comedy Thais, written by the Greek poet Menander” (NIV notes), when he said:

³³ Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”  (1 Corinthians 15:33)

So, back to the first part of our verse in Proverbs 13:20 – Walk with the wise and become wise.

If we consider what we have learnt from Proverbs so far concerning wisdom, we will recall that wisdom is something we should seek after with all our heart.

To quote from my Post # 399: “As we read Proverbs 2, we note that we are encouraged to diligently seek wisdom (call out for… cry aloud for… 2:3), in fact, we are to diligently search for it as for hidden treasure (2:4).”

Considering this, we can see therefore the relevance of choosing wise friends, and then spending time with these wise friends, in order to learn from them and become wise ourselves.

James says: If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.  (James 1:5)

The Psalms begin with this same advice concerning choosing our friends carefully, knowing that (whether we believe it or not) our friends will either influence us in a positive or a negative way. In fact, it may well be the difference between being blessed by God and living right before him or being led into a destructive lifestyle. Psalm 1 says:

 ¹ Blessed is the one
   who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
   or sit in the company of mockers,
² but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
   and who meditates on his law day and night.
³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
   which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
   whatever they do prospers.

In the context of the day, for the average Jewish believer, a major temptation that came with walking-standing-sitting in the company of evil companions, in the way the Psalmist is describing it here, would be to compromise in the form of idolatry and all its accompanying vices and therefore live in disobedience to the laws of God.

For us in the 21^st Century, walking-standing-sitting in evil company in a way that influences us negatively so that we learn from them their evil ways, could also lead us into modern forms of spiritual idolatry. But these days, with what is available to us through the many forms of media we have, we don’t even have to be in the presence of a single person to walk-stand-sit, taking on board the vices of our society. In so many ways the wisdom offered here in this Psalm applies as much to us today than way back when it was written.

As J B Phillips translates Romas 12:2  

Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity. (Romans 12:2 J B Phillips NT)

So, now let me recommend a friend to you. A friend like no other. A friend like the One described in Proverbs 17 when it says:

A friend loves at all times… (17:17)

His name is Jesus. Listen to his words as he spoke to his disciples before he gave his life for you and me:

⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love… ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:9-17)

To walk with Jesus as a friend is to fulfil the Proverb – Walk with the wise and become wise – because wisdom is found in Christ, as Paul in Colossians says:

…Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  (Colossians 2:2-3)

Let me conclude chapter 13 with these wise words:

¹⁴ The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life,
    turning a person from the snares of death.