There is a Saturday Night Live sketch worth watching on YouTube. A woman is fed up with her boyfriend and decides to take him to a ‘manpark’ where he can hang out and ‘play’ with other men. This is the sad condition of men in the modern world. Our loneliness is so obvious that it has become a satirical theme on late night comedy shows. Yet, in truth, the situation is anything but funny. There are multiple reasons why men in the 21st century are overwhelmed by anxiety, depression, anger, and addiction. Among them is an epidemic of loneliness that affects men – not only outside of the church – but also inside of it.
In this series of articles we are looking at different traits of spiritual friendship. The key idea is that, men don’t just need friends, they need spiritual friends. In other words, they need a quality of friendship that, not only fulfills some desire for companionship, but also spurs men along a path to spiritual maturity.
Now in order to get such spiritual encouragement, every Christian man should look for a friend who will be a kind of spiritual sparring partner. The image of a sparring partner is worth pausing to consider. It pulls together several ideas that will help men think about the nature of spiritual friendship.
First, a sparring partner is invested in the same sport. No one would go to a country club in order to find a sparring partner for the boxing ring. If someone is looking to improve as a boxer, there is one place he should go to find a sparring partner, a boxing gym.
The same is true spiritually. One of the key traits of spiritual friendship is that such friends are pursuing a common objective. The difference between mere friendship and spiritual friendship is that spiritual friends are seeking to grow spiritually. The activity they are committed to first and foremost is the pursuit of holiness.
Second, a sparring partner is someone who shares a weight class and, typically, is at a similar level of skill or development. One doesn’t usually stick a professional with an amateur. Sparring partners are matched because they are able to challenge each other at a similar level of proficiency.
There is a spiritual lesson to be learned from this. Although men need a variety of different types of relationships in their lives, there is something valuable about having a spiritual friend who is at a similar stage of spiritual growth. Such friends will be able to encourage one another in a different way than happens through coaching and mentorship. They will more readily identify with each other’s struggles and be able to feel the camaraderie of working through like challenges and temptations.
Third, a sparring partner is someone who is willing to challenge a man while always keeping his best interest in view. Whereas in a competition, a boxer is trying to knock out his opponent, while sparring, the goal is for each fighter to improve in skill and ability.
This touches upon a vital aspect of spiritual friendship. Spiritual friends are not playing a zero-sum game in which, for ‘me’ to win, ‘you’ must lose. On the contrary, the ideal of spiritual friendship is for each friend to achieve as much growth as possible. If a spiritual friend sees transformation occurring in the life of another man, he does not feel frustration or envy. Rather, he rejoices at every indication of growth. The ultimate goal of spiritual friendship is not for ‘me’ to be champion of the world, but for each friend to advance as far as possible to the fullness and stature of Christ – who is, after all, the indisputable champion of the world.
For more thoughts on how to find a friend who will be a sparring partner, listen to the Cross Training podcast episode here: