This week Nick spoke on Proverbs 13:20, "He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm." and Proverbs 27:6, "Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses." Both Proverbs deal with how friends can influence us. The first Proverb deals with how our friends can change the way that we behave. If we have friends who pressure us to do foolish things like the girl who tried to jump over the stream in the video, then we will be much more likely to do stupid stuff. Our friends can even pressure us to do things that are wrong and that will hurt us. We need to have wise friends who will help us to do the right thing. As the second verse talks about how we need friends who are willing to tell us when we are doing something wrong. The criticism might feel like a wound at the time, but in the end it will be better than just having someone say nice things about us that they do not really mean. When someone "kisses" us or "kisses up" to us, they are saying nice things about us, even though they do not really care about us. It feels better to be around these sorts of people sometimes, but in the end we need the influence of someone who can criticize us and help to make us better. As a result we need to think about what kinds of friends we have, how we can get friends who will be good influences on us, and how we can be a good influence to our friends.
