{"id":40379,"date":"2016-09-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/researchers-struggle-to-define-friendship\/"},"modified":"2016-09-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-05T00:00:00","slug":"researchers-struggle-to-define-friendship","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/researchers-struggle-to-define-friendship\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers Struggle to Define Friendship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t<em class=\"citation\">The New York Times<\/em> featured an article exploring our current confusion about friendship. &quot;Ask people to define friendship&mdash;even [experts who research friendship]&mdash;and you&#39;ll get an uncomfortable silence followed by &quot;er&quot; or &quot;um.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>&quot;Friendship is difficult to describe,&quot; said Alexander Nehamas, a professor of philosophy at Princeton, who in his book, &quot;On Friendship,&quot; spends almost 300 pages trying to do just that. &quot;It&#39;s easier to say what friendship is not and, foremost, it is not instrumental.&quot; It is not a means to obtain higher status, wrangle an invitation to someone&#39;s vacation home, or simply escape your own boredom. Rather, Mr. Nehamas said, friendship is more like beauty or art, which &hellip; is &quot;appreciated for its own sake.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>Ronald Sharp, a professor who teaches a course on the literature of friendship added, &quot;It&#39;s not about what someone can do for you, it&#39;s who and what the two of you become in each other&#39;s presence &hellip; The notion of doing nothing but spending time in each other&#39;s company has, in a way, become a lost art. People are so eager to maximize efficiency of relationships that they have lost touch with what it is to be a friend.&quot;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[409],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3511,3525,3526,3548,3601,3641,3644,3647,3726,3961,3982,4019,4020,4021,4117,4236,4237,4238,4275,4286,4374,4383,4528,4792,4885,5003,5047,5213,5214,5272],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-40379","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-body-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-brotherhood","tax_ctp_tags-brotherly-love","tax_ctp_tags-caring","tax_ctp_tags-church","tax_ctp_tags-communication","tax_ctp_tags-community","tax_ctp_tags-companionship","tax_ctp_tags-culture","tax_ctp_tags-family-ministry","tax_ctp_tags-fellowship","tax_ctp_tags-friend","tax_ctp_tags-friendlessness","tax_ctp_tags-friendship","tax_ctp_tags-happiness","tax_ctp_tags-indifference","tax_ctp_tags-individualism","tax_ctp_tags-individuality","tax_ctp_tags-intimacy","tax_ctp_tags-isolation","tax_ctp_tags-lifestyle","tax_ctp_tags-loneliness","tax_ctp_tags-need","tax_ctp_tags-relationship","tax_ctp_tags-satisfaction","tax_ctp_tags-small-groups","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-friendship","tax_ctp_tags-unity","tax_ctp_tags-unity-of-church","tax_ctp_tags-wholeness"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - 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