The Importance of Choosing Wise Friends

May 9, 2025

“Spend time with the wise and you will become wise, but the friends of fools will suffer.” Proverbs 13:20 (NCV)

If you want to be wise, invite wise people into your life.

You don’t need a lot of friends. You don’t need to be popular. You just need a few good friends who build you up, not tear you down—who are wise, not fools.

If you hang around with fools, that’s what you become. But if you spend time with wise people, you’ll grow wiser.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be friends with unbelievers. This just means, our close friends, the ones we allow to influence us should lead us closer to God. Friends who will pray for you. Friends who will tell you the truth.

It’s our nature to be influenced by our surroundings. When we put ourselves in a godly atmosphere with godly people, we are influenced toward godliness.

People grow best in community. You can’t grow to spiritual maturity by yourself. God designed us to need each other. Wisdom shows up primarily in relationships.

You could become a monk and move to the top of a mountain and spend your life in silence and reading books; you would grow in knowledge, but you wouldn’t grow in wisdom. You can hold advanced academic degrees but still have your relationships fall apart; being educated doesn’t necessarily mean you’re wise.

If I stand on the edge of a stage, and I’m trying to pull you up while you’re trying to pull me down, which is easier to do? It’s always easier for somebody to pull you down than pull you up. But people who pull you down are not your true friends. Real friends pull you up. They encourage you in your pursuit of godly wisdom by offering their own.

“A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24).

Do you have anybody in your life who is sharing their wisdom on a regular basis? You need that kind of encouragement in your life if you want to be a wise person.