Towards Friendship-Shaped Communities: A Practical Theology of Friendship

3 Friendship and First Testament Writings

The First Testament (the Hebrew Bible and its Greek translation) provides rich and intriguing data regarding friendship in both its personal and civic dimensions. This chapter begins with an exploration of the Hebrew terminology of friendship and love, traces relationality and friendship back to the creation accounts in the first chapters of Genesis and to the interrelatedness of Creator and creation, and proposes that the creational intent is multi-dimensional friendship. Friendship is also evident in the prophetic tradition, with civic friendship implicit in the theme of reciprocity and in the Deuteronomic call to ancient Israel to befriend the other and image God within the covenant community. This chapter identifies the way of life to which the covenant community is called as theologically based civic friendship and considers the inter-relationship of friendship and wisdom.

What ideally should we be doing when it comes to friendship and community? The second sub-movement of a fundamental practical theology involves confronting the scene set in the descriptive movement with central normative texts of a community’s faith tradition(s). Thus, this chapter seeks to confront the inconsistency and devaluing of friendship evident in the descriptive sub-movement with ways of being and relating revealed in the First Testament. While sometimes a challenge to interpret, these scriptures nevertheless provide rich and intriguing data regarding ...