Has the virtue of friendship been lost today?

If so, why?

And how do we recover a biblical vision of friendship rooted in the example of Jesus?

Our guest today is back. Her name is Rebecca McLaughlin. She holds a

PhD in Renaissance literature from Cambridge University and is the author of an

excellent new book called No Greater Love. I'm Sean McDowell. I'm Scott Ray and this is

Think Bibbically from Talbot School Theology Biola University.

Rebecca, when I saw the title of this book I was instantly intrigued because all the other books I read of you are

apologetics books which I love of course so maybe tell us the backstory of

what motivated you to write a book on friendship.

Gosh, so many things I could say.

Part of it comes from the fact that for the last several years

I have been thinking and writing quite a bit about questions of sexuality from a Christian perspective.

And one of the things that I've been trying to argue is that the Bible is actually very clear in its no to same-sex sexual relationships for Christians

under any circumstances. So there are some folks today who would want to say,

well, you know, if we really understood the cultural context or if we really

understood the scriptures, we'd recognize that what the Bible excludes is, is, you know,

various kinds of relationships but not, it leaves room for kind of monogamous committed you know say a marriage

between two people at the same sex. And the last few years I've been in multiple different books

and talks arguing that no actually the Bible is

is very clear that same-sex marriages is out for Christians

but I've been increasingly persuaded that actually that no is in the context of too much bigger

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