The Word of the Month for September is FRIENDS

To begin with we’re going to explore some of the Greek words used in the New Testament. We shall then turn to a particular example of friendship: The Friends of the City Churches.

Some words in the New Testament

The noun agape and the verb agapaō

agapē means unconditional love. Jesus used agapē when he said that ‘by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another’: that is, if you have unconditional love for one another. (John 13:35)

The connected verb agapaō means to love unconditionally. We find it twice in Jesus’ summary of the commandments:

you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. … You shall love your neighbour as yourself: (John 12:30–31)

and we also find it twice in this verse: ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you’. (John 15:12)

The noun philia, the verb phileō, and the noun philos

The noun philia means affectionate love, or friendship. It appears once in the New Testament: ‘Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God’. (James 4:4)

The connected verb phileō has a somewhat flexible meaning: it can mean ‘to be a friend’, or it can mean something close to agapaō, but without complete unconditionality. The verb is used twice in this saying of Jesus:

For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. (John 16:27)

The noun philos means ‘friend’, and that is how it is generally translated into English:

No one has greater love (agapē) than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (philos). (John 15:13)

Jesus meets Peter

While the High Priest Caiaphas was questioning Jesus before taking him to the Roman Governor Pilate to ask for his crucifixion, Jesus’ disciple Peter was sitting outside, and three times he denied that he knew Jesus. After Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection Peter met Jesus on the lakeside and this conversation took place:

Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love (agapaō) me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love (phileō) you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love (agapaō) me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love (phileō)you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love (phileō) me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love (phileō) you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep. (John 21:15–17)

What is going on here? One possibility is that Jesus is asking Peter for unconditional love, the kind of love that might enable someone to give their life for another, but he doesn’t get that. He gets an offer of conditional love, or of friendship. Finally, Jesus lowers the bar and asks Peter for his conditional love or for his friendship, which he gets. What then happened is that Peter became a leader of the early Church, and according to tradition he did end up giving his life because he was a follower of Jesus. He had learnt what agapaō meant.

philos

As Peter found, unconditional love is not easy, so we settle for something less. Perhaps for the people closest to us we might approximate to agapē, unconditional love, and there are still those who will give their lives for someone else: but we generally live in the world of phileō. We offer conditional love, or we are friends, we befriend, and we are befriended. This can be particularly appropriate when it comes to institutions and objects, as the Oxford English Dictionary entry for ‘friend’ suggests when it offers the definition ‘A member of a society that provides support for an institution (as a museum, theatre, landmark, etc.) by raising money, providing assistance or publicity, etc.’. It will generally be appropriate for there to be an element of conditionality and distancing, but such friendship can still sometimes approach the quality of unconditional love. ‘Friends of …’ organisations will contain people all across the spectrum from phileō to something close to agapaō.

And so this month we are celebrating the work of the Friends of the City Churches with an exhibition at St Mary Abchurch.

The Friends of the City Churches

The Friends of the City Churches are a charity dedicated to the care and appreciation of the historic churches of the City of London. Through volunteering, publications, and events, the Friends celebrate the rich spiritual, social and historical value of the remarkable medieval, Wren and Georgian churches within the ancient Square Mile. The Friends aim to

• Bring together the many interesting people who love and value the City churches
• Assist in the conservation and repair of these historic buildings through small grants and services
• Enrich our members’ knowledge through events including walks, talks, visits and tours
• Explore the heritage and the modern life of the churches in our magazine Skyline
• Welcome weekday visitors and worshippers to the churches through the work of our volunteer Church Watchers.

Our Church Watching scheme was launched in 1995—when the City churches were much less accessible than they are today—to receive visitors and worshippers, and to encourage more churches to open during the working day. Since then hundreds of volunteers have helped to keep church doors open. 

The Friends’ Small Grants Programme offers grants of up to £5,000 to churches within the City of London for small-scale repair or improvement projects in or outside the building. Typical projects include repairs to roofs, floors and gutters; the conservation of monuments and church furniture; provision of audio-visual equipment for online services; and interior glass doors to preserve heat in old churches. The FCC also has a designated fund for repairs to textiles such as vestments, banners, kneelers, frontals falls, and fair linen.

The Friends’ publications include A Short Guide to the City of London Churches (£2), The Visitor’s Guide to the City of London Churches, and Sword Rests of the City, all by City Guide Tony Tucker, as well as a map of the churches which is distributed throughout the City. Our City Events listing guide to services, concerts, lectures, exhibitions and performances in the churches is available as a pdf on our website. 

FCC membership is open to anyone with an interest in the City churches. For more information please visit our website at www.london-city-churches.org.uk. The FCC office is located in St Mary Abchurch and is open between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday to Thursday. Its phone number is 020 7626 1555. 

The FCC is a secular Charitable Incorporated Organisation with charity registration number 1155049. 

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.