This week on the Straight Truth podcast, Dr. Richard Caldwell and Dr. Josh Philpot discuss the issue of friendships and influence as it regards to a question submitted by a listener. Dr. Philpot tells us that the listener is a married woman seeking biblical and godly wisdom on how to best address a friendship issue she sees as potentially dangerous for her husband, their marriage, and home life. She wants to honor God concerning marital submission and at the same time desires to embrace her role as her husband’s helper. She states that her husband has begun to hang out with new friends that engage in ungodly behaviors. How can she approach this issue with her husband without usurping his role as the leader in their home?

Dr. Caldwell says that as a husband’s helper, wives are absolutely obligated to raise concerns if they see their husbands headed in any direction that is dangerous to their soul, to your relationship and dangerous to your home. He tells us that this is absolutely the role of a Christian wife. 1 Peter 3 is the way wives are to address issues related to disobedient husbands. Here, God's Word encourages the wife to first set her focus on her demeanor, her own attitude, and devotion to the Lord. She is to make sure that as she addresses the issue(s), that she does so in a godly manner, desiring to be the godly helper that God has provided. She is to go forward humbly, lovingly, and patiently explaining the dangers she sees in his pursuit. Dr. Caldwell also speaks to the role of submission, reminding wives, that submission is not silence.

Responsibilities That Belong to All Christians

Submission is not in any way wives pushing away the responsibilities that belong to all Christians. He says the best thing we can ever do for our marriages is to live out the Christian life in our own homes. There are marital responsibilities given specifically for those who are married, but there are also commands that are given for all Christians that we need to take seriously. If we consider all the commands given, to and for 'one another' in the Bible, we will see that correction is included among them. Dr. Caldwell gently reminds us that we need to love 'one another' enough to correct each other. If we do not address these kinds of issues in our homes, that is not loving, and it is not submission. This would be a distortion of Christian love, and additionally for wives, a perversion of biblical submission.

Dr. Philpot discusses the subject of how men, both young and old, sometimes have this life of hanging on to some of their past friendships, relationships, and other things as well. They sort of cling to these things neglecting to move on in maturity. Therefore, they often neglect the biblical command to cling to their wife and their marriage. He asks what can be said to men who find themselves in these kinds of positions? Dr. Caldwell reminds men, that they are to leave their father and mother. They are to cling to their wives, forming a new bond and family unit.

Furthermore, this leaving also applies to your friendships. You are no longer single and no longer have the time you once had. Marriage requires devotion, there are new responsibilities that require your time, energy, effort and focus. This new relationship of marriage, to your wife, is to become your primary human relationship.

Walk With Friends And Companions Who Are Godly

Now having said this, Dr. Caldwell says it's not that we won't have friends as married people. He tells us that what is true for all Christians, single or married, is that we want to walk with friends and companions who are godly. We see the importance of this reflected by the Psalmist in the first Psalm. We want to walk with friends and companions who love the Lord Jesus Christ with all their hearts. We want to walk with people who are pursuing holiness in their lives, friends who will encourage us to walk holy and blameless before the Lord. If we find ourselves with friends or companions that do not do this and actually encourage the opposite, we should then be relating to them for the purpose of evangelism. These should not be the people that we are walking with or hanging out with daily.

We should not be going here and there with those who don’t know Christ, keeping them close, but never sharing the gospel or talking to them about Christ. We may actually compromise the Word of God in our hanging out with them. We cannot reach the world as Christians who belong to Christ and His Church, by being like the world. We reach the world by being like Christ. It is people, who are different from the world, that are used by God to reach the world. And so it is with relationships and friendships, the more faithful you are to the standards of God’s Word, the greater evangelist you will be. The more Christlike you are, the more powerful your message will be to those of the world.