No Greater Love
A Biblical Vision for Friendship
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Greater love has no one than this: that he lay down his life for his friends. –John 15:13
Our culture idolizes romance and the love of parents for their children. But Jesus said there was no greater love than sacrificial friendship love. What’s more, He issued a command to His disciples that they live into this kind of love. Christian friendship isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s vital. But it’s also dangerous.
Friends can pull us up when we’re knocked down, embrace us with their love, and spur us on to follow Jesus better. But friends can also grind us to the ground, exploit, or invite us into sin.
In No Greater Love, Rebecca McLaughlin walks us through the highs and lows of friendship love—a love that’s been neglected and malnourished in our modern world. She draws especially on Jesus in the Gospels and on Paul to show how powerful and precious Christian friendship is and how we can walk through the hurt, loss, and disillusionment that comes from broken friendship trust. Beginning with the words of Jesus on the night he was betrayed and abandoned, she points us to His battle-tested love as the unending source of our best love for one another.
Male or female, single or married, joyful or lamenting, lonely or embraced, we all need friendship love. This book will help us give and receive it in a way that calls us back to Jesus’s commandment: that we love each other just like He loves us.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Friendship at its best is just as powerful as any other love," but "we will only gain the full good of this gift if we are also ready for the risk and vulnerability of opening our hearts," asserts McLaughlin (Jesus Through the Eyes of Women) in this earnest ode to an essential element of Christian life. Drawing on personal anecdotes and biblical analysis, the author discusses the importance of reaching out to those who attend church solo; finding like-minded "comrades" who drive one another toward "the work the Lord is calling you to do"; and displaying appropriate physical affection to friends, even in a Western culture that often shies away from nonromantic touch. Elsewhere, she sensitively broaches less discussed topics, such as how to navigate sexual attraction in Christian friendships (including same-sex ones), and issues that arise in friendships with those of other faiths. While parts of her message tread well-worn ground (including the notion that "we... demonstrate our love for Him by our love for one another"), readers will appreciate McLaughlin's sincere reappraisal of friendship's value within a culture that often prizes romantic and familial bonds above all else, and welcome her wise observation that "each bond "shine lights on different aspects of God's love." This will resonate with those eager to forge closer bonds with their pewmates.
