{"id":45086,"date":"2022-10-01T01:39:47","date_gmt":"2022-10-01T06:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/a-contrast-in-friends-bible-study\/"},"modified":"2022-10-01T01:39:47","modified_gmt":"2022-10-01T06:39:47","slug":"a-contrast-in-friends-bible-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/a-contrast-in-friends-bible-study\/","title":{"rendered":"A Contrast In Friends &#8211; Bible study"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the Old Testament, Job and Daniel had much in common because both went through serious trials and challenges. Both had great success because of the blessing of God&#8217;s presence in their lives. Both are viewed as giants of the faith  one for his patience in suffering, and the other for his purity in an impure culture (James 5:10-11; Daniel 1:8).<\/p>\n<p>Job and Daniel had one other thing in common  each had three significant friends. However, the similarities end here. Job&#8217;s friends became a thorn in his flesh, offering him condemnation when he needed compassion and companionship. As Job struggled with loss and grief, his &#8220;friends&#8221; Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar seemed bent on intensifying his pain rather than helping him in his adversity.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, Daniel&#8217;s three friends were very different. Taken captive together, Daniel and his companions, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, supported and strengthened one another in difficult times. They stood together in honoring God (Daniel 1:1-21) and in prayer (Daniel 2:17-18), and in refusing to bow before the king&#8217;s image (Daniel 3:16-18). These are the kind of faithful friends we all need.<\/p>\n<p>The question we need to ask ourselves is: &#8220;What kind of friend am I?&#8221; The writer of Proverbs says, &#8220;A friend loves at all times&#8221; (Proverbs 17:17 &#8211; NKJV). Who needs us to be a friend today? Let&#8217;s be the <strong>faithful<\/strong> kind of friend as Daniel&#8217;s friends were.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the Old Testament, Job and Daniel had much in common because both went through serious trials and challenges. Both had great success because of the blessing of God&#8217;s presence in their lives. Both are viewed as giants of the faith one for his patience in suffering, and the other for his purity in an &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/a-contrast-in-friends-bible-study\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A Contrast In Friends &#8211; Bible study&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}