Today we’re sharing an excerpt by Tina Boesch from the Friends and Sisters Bible study by Lifeway Women. In this 5-week Bible study for women, we’ll reflect on how to cultivate deep, Christ-centered relationships and strengthen our bond as sisters and friends. Through biblical examples and practical application, we’ll explore what the Bible teaches us about loving, caring for, honoring, supporting, and investing in one another for the long haul. And we’ll consider what it looks like to seek out and cultivate friendships in the church, the place where we find true belonging. Whether you’re new to your relationship with Jesus or have walked with Him for years, this study will remind you that you have a place in God’s family and will inspire you to become a better sister and friend.
Friends and Sisters Bible Study Excerpt
When two friends, Lilias Trotter and Blanche Haworth, stood on the deck of a ship skirting the shore of North Africa, they could not have known the stark beauty, adventures, danger, or profound joys that lay ahead. The women arrived in Algiers harbor in 1888 and began learning Arabic with the hopes of reaching the Muslim women sequestered in their homes in the Arab section of town. Yamina, Fatima, Hatique, Taitum—the names of the Arab women Lilias and Blanche grew to love—mark the pages of Lilias’s journals from this early period, alongside stories of her creative ways of introducing them to Sidna Aissa (Jesus Christ), and her paintings of the women, children, landscapes, and architecture of Algeria.
Not content to limit their ministry to cities along the coastline, Lilias and Blanche set their sights on reaching into the Algerian hill country and vast desert interior, the Southlands, where Europeans didn’t venture. Along the way, they faced scorching temperatures, thieves, scorpions, and typhoid. Traveling from village to village, they visited women in their homes and tents. “Such faces they have, these women, full of character and intelligence. Forcible faces,” Lilias noted in her journal. She recorded one woman’s response to hearing the story of Jesus for the first time, “We have had no news of this: we are getting old but we have never heard this before—no one has come to tell us except you!”
The two friends with different giftings were an indomitable missionary team and, over the span of a forty-year friendship, they invited many other brothers and sisters into their fellowship and ministry.1 The fruitfulness of their ministry grew out of a deep and abiding friendship and a soul sisterhood committed to laying aside everything to know Christ better and to introduce others to Him. Each individual woman’s ministry was magnified by the complementary gifts of the other.
This is precisely the dynamic we see in the relationships between Paul and his friends in ministry, partners like Titus, Timothy, Priscilla, Aquila, and Luke. In Colossians 3 we learn about Christian qualities that reflect the character of Jesus and are only possible in the power of the Spirit. In Colossians 4, we see how these qualities were expressed in real life within Paul’s community of Christian friends, many of whom were partners in ministry. We’ll see that Paul lived what he preached. He was an encouragement to his friends, and he received essential encouragement from them that enabled him to endure hard seasons of opposition and persecution.
The Comforting Friendship
I love the small, personal details Paul includes in his letters. Blink and you’ll miss them, but look closely and they can be a profound encouragement in your relationships with others and with Jesus. In Colossians 4:7, Tychicus is referred to as a “dearly loved brother, faithful minister, and fellow servant of the Lord.” In verses 10-11, Paul says Aristarchus, Mark, and Justus “have been a comfort to me.” Being able to comfort another person grows out of a heart of compassion. These brothers saw Paul’s suffering, and they encouraged his heart.
In verse 10, Paul calls Aristarchus “a fellow prisoner.” Paul wrote the letter of Colossians from prison, likely during his first Roman imprisonment (Acts 28). Earlier in the letter, Paul reveals that he has been suffering (1:24; 2:1); but even from his incarceration, he wants “their hearts be encouraged” (2:2). Paul was able to encourage the Christians in Colossae partly because he had been encouraged by Aristarchus, Mark, and Justus. They comforted him and, in turn, he was able to comfort the Colossians.
The book of Acts and Paul’s other letters contain many of the names we encounter in Colossians 4. In Acts, we learn that Tychicus and Aristarchus traveled with Paul on his third missionary journey (Acts 20:4). Later, Paul sent Tychicus to Ephesus to report on all the things God was doing through their ministry (2 Tim. 4:12; Eph. 6:21). I can’t help but wonder if Tychicus was a gifted communicator, because every time he’s mentioned, his job is to bring news to the churches.
One name mentioned in Colossians 4 might have raised eyebrows—Onesimus. Onesimus’s story speaks volumes about the countercultural nature of Christian friendship and how it ran against the grain of cultural expectations within the Roman Empire.
Countercultural Friendship
Paul wrote the book of Philemon as a letter to his “dear friend” Philemon, and the letter is all about Onesimus.
In this letter, we learn that Onesimus was a slave who had run away, a risky action in the Roman Empire where he could have been executed if he had been caught. Somewhere along his journey, he met Paul and became a believer in Jesus. Onesimus’s faith radically altered his status within a community defined by unity in Christ—no longer a slave to Philemon, Onesimus was now his “dearly loved brother” (v. 16).
Paul’s genuine love for Philemon and Onesimus shines through in this letter. Paul appealed to Philemon to grant Onesimus his freedom so that he could serve in ministry alongside Paul, not as a slave, but as a brother. Onesimus must have had a compelling reason to flee from Philemon. But Paul asked both men to live out their faith, to forgive one another, and to be reconciled with one another, so they could experience full freedom in Christ.
Paul was a Roman citizen, well-educated, well-traveled, with influence and rights that protected him. Onesimus was a slave with no rights and no legal protection. In the culture of that time, these two men were not considered equals. They should not have been friends, and certainly not brothers. But in Christ they became both brothers and friends. Their relationship transcended and upended the cultural expectations of their time and of ours. It would be unusual in our day for two people with such different backgrounds and life experiences to be friends.
Today we’ve met just a handful of the friends Paul depended on. In his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul expressed the delight he took in the presence of his friends: “I am delighted to have Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus present, because these men have made up for your absence. For they have refreshed my spirit and yours” (1 Cor. 16:17-18, emphasis added).
Pray
As friends and sisters in Christ, we are called to refresh one another’s spirits. Whose spirit can you refresh today? Who can you comfort? Spend some time today praying for the God of all comfort to open your eyes to a sister who needs encouragement and to give you the opportunity to be that for her.
1. Miriam Huffman Rockness, A Passion for the Impossible: The Life of Lilias Trotter (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers, 1999): 131, 145, 264.
Want to learn more about the Friends and Sisters Bible study? Watch the short video below or view a free sample and teaching video clips at lifeway.com/friendsandsisters.
About Tina Boesch
Tina Boesch has lived in seven countries on three continents. She earned a MA in theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. These days she serves as Manager of the Lifeway Women Bible Study Publishing Team. She’s the author of Given: The Forgotten Meaning and Practice of Blessing and has designed stained glass windows for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and North Greenville University. You can find more of her writing and design at tinaboesch.com.
