If you visit our sister site, FreeChristianEBooks.org, regularly, you will know that we have begun adding multi-format options for our Christian books recently. It’s a big project, but the goal is to ultimately have all our free e-books available in four formats: e-books (in .epub, .mobi, and .pdf versions), audio books, podcast discussions and summaries, and explainer videos.
These four formats provide a complete range of engagement from the full e-book which you might choose to read over a couple of days, to video summaries of the books’ key ideas that only take a couple of minutes to watch. So, check out some of the new formats for books you may not have read yet, or for which you would like a quick review.
This past week we added a short new video explainer for R. Herbert’s Take Courage! The Vital Quality Every Christian Must Have. It’s a book that can help you to significantly develop your Christian walk – and the video only takes a couple of minutes to watch,here!
Most Christians know the story of the teacher of the law who asked Jesus, “Who is my Neighbor?” This was the question that prompted Jesus to reply with the Parable of the Good Samaritan – showing that even our enemies are neighbors when it comes to the law of God.
But what if the teacher had asked the question in a slightly different way, saying, “Who is my Friend?” Could the answer to that question also impact our understanding of the Way of Christianity? We don’t have any indication in the New Testament of that question being asked of Jesus, but we do have Jesus’ answer to it, nevertheless.
In his Gospel, Matthew tells the story of Jesus’ betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane. Judas Iscariot, the disciple turned traitor, had led a group of soldiers and other armed men to where he knew Christ would be in order to betray him for a cash reward. As Judas approached Jesus in the dark of night and greeted him with a kiss in order to identify him to those who were to arrest him, Matthew records Jesus’ surprising words: “‘Do what you came for, friend.’ Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him” (Matthew 26:50).
Think about this. Jesus was not one to soften the truth. He was the one who called the Pharisees “whitened sepulchers” and a “brood of vipers” – to their faces. But at the very moment of his betrayal , Jesus did not call Judas all the things we probably would have done. He did not call Judas “Traitor!” “Enemy!” “Back-Stabber!” – he did not even call him “False Friend!” Amazingly, he just called him “Friend.”
Now if we want to get technical, the word the Bible uses to record what Jesus called Judas was not philos, the Greek word usually translated “friend” and meaning “dear” in the sense of a close friend. It uses the word hetairos meaning “friend” in the sense of a comrade, one who is a friend without necessarily having any affectionate relationship. But he did call Judas by a word that means “friend” in the general sense (Matthew also uses the word in this sense in Matthew 20:13 and Matthew 22:12).
How do we apply his example? The Old Testament gives us some clues. Hebrew has a word, merea, which is very similar in meaning to the Greek hetairos – it also means friend in the sense of companion or comrade and it is found in Job’s words: “He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty” (Job 6:14). It is the same word that is used to tell us that after Job prayed for his “friends” (the individuals who had been haranguing him), God forgave them (Job 42:10).
So if righteous Job prayed for the “friends” who mistreated him, and Christ could even call Judas “friend” as he betrayed him, can we learn a lesson from this? When we pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44), do we pray grudgingly, with reservations, or do we pray for them as we would for a friend?
If you have not read our new e-book on the Bible’s book of Job, maybe this short video will convince you to do it! Job: Answering the Question of Suffering provides a surprising and encouraging study of one of the Bible’s most fascinating, but least understood books. The video gives a brief introduction to this book and its important lessons that every Christian needs to understand. Watch the video and maybe you will decide to read the e-book (here) after all!
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