Proverbs 19:4 Commentary and Bible Study

This proverb highlights a sad feature of many so-called friendships in the world: they are really just devices for seeking personal advantage. True friendship loves the other without consideration of what is to be gained, and indeed it is more ready to give than to receive. When Christ calls his disciples his friends, it is because of what he does for them, what he shares with them, the disclosures that he makes to them, and his unfailing loyalty to them for ever and ever. In return we give him little, and the little we do give is the result of his transforming work in our hearts. It is his Spirit who puts love for him within us, and zeal to serve him. None of this was in us by nature and he has to bear patiently with us for many years while we slip and slide and make such slow progress. We are poor and blind and naked; we have no standing in heaven and yet he calls us his friends. This is true friendship which loves us not for what we are by nature, but for what he will make us by his transforming power.His love is our perfect example but it is rare to find true love in this lost world. Yes, men and women are still capable of love and unselfishness towards each other, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Love is found in the world because God has preserved a modicum of it among fallen men and women so that there is a meaningful language with which he can communicate to us the grace of Christ in the salvation of his people. Among God’s people friendships should be based on kindness and generosity that does not expect any payback. It is tragic to see false friendships based on such obvious self-seeking, but why else do apparent friends gather round a rich man, and why are the poor so soon abandoned? Is it coincidence that this is the case? No, the rich are often surrounded by those who hope that some of their wealth will rub off on them. This is sham friendship. In such cases the real object of affection is not another human soul, a real person with hopes and fears, thoughts and feelings, but an immaterial object. This is tragic because that immaterial object cannot love in return. The truth is that the false friend has exchanged a living human soul which is of more value than all the world put together, for a dead material object which is incapable of reciprocating in a personal way.