SERIES: Deep Relationships in a Digital World — Proverbs
TEXT: Proverbs 17:17; 18:24; 27:6
MESSAGE: “Genuine Friendship in an Artificial Age”
“Do AI chatbots alleviate the loneliness epidemic or do they merely cover it over with a thin veil of pseudoattention and dopamine?” — Alan Noble
“When you’re lonely, instead of texting a friend and having to wait for him/her to reply, you can open an AI companion app and immediately receive positive reassurance that you’re appreciated and loved…An AI companion is always available at your beck and call. When you’re discouraged or need to process something, instead of waiting to call or meet with a friend, you can chat with your companion and get immediate feedback—which just happens to be positive toward you.” — Alan Noble
“In the brief time ChatGPT has been available, the number of users age 18 and older has continued to rise dramatically (Pew Research Center).” Some of the leading ways people use generative AI, according to research conducted by the Harvard Business Review, are cause for concern. ‘Therapy and/or companionship’ rose from the second-top use of the AI chatbot in 2024 to first in 2025.” — Keith Plummer
“Put me back among my Friends and in half an hour – in ten minutes…The opinion of this little circle, while I am in it, outweighs that of a thousand outsiders: as Friendship strengthens, it will do this even when my Friends are far away. For we all wish to be judged by our peers, by the men ‘after our own heart.’ Only they really know our mind, and only they judge it by standards we fully acknowledge. Theirs is the praise we really covet and the blame we really dread.” — C.S. Lewis
TEXT: Proverbs 17:17, 18:24, and 27:6
Q: What does the Bible tell us about friendship, and how do we become that kind of friend in an artificial age? From today’s text, we are given three aspects of healthy friendships. (1. The Foundation for Friendship 2. The Forging of Friendship 3. The Faithful Friend)
1. The Foundation for Friendship (Proverbs 17:17)
“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” ― C.S. Lewis
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” — John 15:12
2. The Forging of Friendship (Proverbs 18:24)
“A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”
3. The Faithful Friend (Proverbs 27:6)
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.”
“One of the greatest enticements of chatbot counseling is something that corresponds to our proneness to self-deception and self-righteousness, and the deep-seated desire to see ourselves in the most favorable light…The Book of Proverbs, with the rest of Scripture, consistently sounds the alarm against flattery (the effusive and insincere heaping of praise on another) because it is speech designed to manipulate the hearer for the speaker’s benefit.” — Keith Plummer
“A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin.” — Proverbs 26:28
“Chatbots, since they’re not personal agents, cannot flatter in the technical sense. They aren’t seeking to manipulate their human user to somehow advantage themselves, for there are no ‘selves’ there. But the creators of various AI platforms are motivated by the desire to profit financially and otherwise from their users.” — Keith Plummer
“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 15:12-15
TAKEAWAYS: How can we live this out?
- Prioritize loving others over being loved
- Prioritize physical spaces over digital spaces
- Prioritize honest feedback over shallow flattery
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” — Proverbs 27:17
“One who truly loves will not be afraid to offer, or receive, needed correction. To remain silent is not a sign of love, whatever be the reason, whether weakness or fear of losing a ‘friend.’” — Roland E. Murphy
“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 15:13-15