Tie two canoes together side by side and push them out onto a river, and something interesting happens. Each man in each canoe still has a paddle, and each one still thinks he’s steering. But the canoes don’t go two directions anymore. They go one direction, and it’s usually the direction of whoever is pulling harder. By the time the weaker paddler notices they’ve drifted toward the far bank, he’s already there with the other man.

Friendship works a lot like that. Nobody ties his life to another person and expects to be pulled off course. We tell ourselves we’ll keep our own heading, that we’re strong enough to hold our line no matter who we spend our time with. But Solomon, who watched a great many men come and go through his court, put the matter plainly in one verse:

Proverbs 13:20 — “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”

That’s not a suggestion about networking or a tip for getting ahead. It’s a warning, and it’s a promise, and both halves of it are true whether we like it or not.

What Does Proverbs 13:20 Mean?

Proverbs 13:20 teaches that the people you spend your life with will shape who you become. Walk with wise people over the long haul, and their wisdom rubs off on you. Make fools your regular company, and sooner or later you’ll share in the damage their choices bring.

Now, the verse has two halves, and each one is worth slowing down for.

• “Walketh” is a way of life. The Hebrew word halak describes walking as a habit, the road a man keeps traveling day after day. Solomon isn’t talking about one conversation with a wise man or one bad evening with a foolish one. He’s talking about the people you keep company with week in and week out.
• The warning is built into the sound of the words. In Hebrew, “companion” is ro’eh and “shall be destroyed” is yeroa. Read aloud, the two words sound almost alike. Solomon made the warning ring in the ear: be a ro’eh of fools, and you’ll end up yeroa right along with them.
• A “fool” isn’t a dull man. The fool in Proverbs, the kesil, may be plenty sharp. His problem is that he won’t listen to God. “How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?” (Proverbs 1:22).

So the question this verse puts to us isn’t whether our friends are smart or successful. It’s whether they’re walking toward God or away from Him, because that’s the direction we’ll be heading too.

Do Bad Friends Really Change Good People?

Yes. Scripture says plainly that ungodly company wears down godly character, and it usually happens so slowly that we never notice it. Nobody plans to drift from the Lord. They just keep sitting with the wrong people a little longer each time, until one day they’re somewhere they never meant to be.

The Apostle Paul gave the Corinthians a warning that reads almost like a commentary on Proverbs 13:20:

1 Corinthians 15:33 — “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.”

The word “communications” there is homilia, and it means company or association, the people you spend time around. “Manners” is ēthē, which means habits and character. Paul is saying that bad company doesn’t just rub off on how you talk; it gets into who you are. And notice that he opens with “Be not deceived.” He knew we’d be tempted to think we were the exception.

• The slide is gradual. “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful” (Psalm 1:1). First you walk past, then you stand around, and at the tail end of it you’ve pulled up a chair and settled in.
• Lot shows how it happens. Genesis 13:12 says Lot “pitched his tent toward Sodom.” He didn’t move into the city right away. He just faced his front door that direction. By Genesis 19:1, “Lot sat in the gate of Sodom,” which means he’d become a man of standing there, and it cost him nearly everything he had.
• You learn the ways of the people you walk with. “Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul” (Proverbs 22:24–25).

Of course, none of this means godly people never influence ungodly ones. They can, and they should. But influence runs both directions, and the Bible never lets us assume we’re the stronger paddler.

What Did Bad Counsel Cost Rehoboam?

It cost him ten of the twelve tribes of Israel. When Rehoboam became king, he ignored the seasoned advisers who had served his father, Solomon, and listened instead to the young men he grew up with. That one decision split the kingdom, and it never came back together.

There’s a sad irony here. The man who wrote Proverbs 13:20 had a son who didn’t heed it. When the people came to Rehoboam asking him to lighten the heavy yoke his father had put on them, he got advice from two very different groups.

The old men told him, “If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants for ever” (1 Kings 12:7). That was wise counsel, and it came from men who’d seen a great deal.

1 Kings 12:8 — “But he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him, and which stood before him.”

Those young men told him to answer harshly and promise an even heavier yoke (1 Kings 12:10–11). He did exactly that, and the result was swift: “So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day” (1 Kings 12:19).

• He chose familiar voices over wise ones. The young men were his friends, the ones he’d grown up with. Their advice felt comfortable because it came from people who thought the way he did.
• He chose flattery over truth. Their counsel made him feel strong. The old men’s counsel asked him to humble himself, and he didn’t want to hear it.
• The cost lasted for generations. Rehoboam’s friends didn’t pay the price for their advice. The whole nation did.

Every one of us has a circle of people whose opinion we trust. Rehoboam’s story makes us ask whether we listen to them because they’re wise or simply because they’re ours.

What Does a Godly Friend Look Like?

A godly friend loves you enough to tell you the truth, sharpens you when you’re growing dull, and points you to God when you’re weak. That kind of friend is rare, and one of them is worth more than a whole crowd of easy companions who only ever tell you what you want to hear.

Scripture gives us a pretty clear picture of what to look for.

• Faithful wounds. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful” (Proverbs 27:6). A true friend will say the hard thing, and he’ll say it because he loves you. Rehoboam’s young friends never wounded him, and that should have been his first clue.
• Iron on iron. “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend” (Proverbs 27:17). Sharpening involves friction. A godly friend doesn’t just agree with you; he makes you better.
• He strengthens you in God. When David was running for his life in the wilderness, “Jonathan Saul’s son arose, and went to David into the wood, and strengthened his hand in God” (1 Samuel 23:16). Notice the last two words. Jonathan didn’t just cheer David up. He pointed him back to the Lord.
• He’s there when you fall.

Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 — “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.”

Actually, the best test may be the simplest one. After you spend time with this person, are you closer to the Lord or further from Him? Do you want to pray more or less? A godly friend leaves you hungrier for God than he found you.

Should Christians Have Unsaved Friends?

Yes, Christians can and should have friendships with unsaved people, because Jesus was called a friend of sinners and we can’t reach people we never spend time with. The real question is direction: are you pulling them toward Christ, or are they slowly pulling you away from Him?

Now, this is where many of us squirm a little. We read Proverbs 13:20 and think of somebody specific: an old friend from before we got saved, a coworker we eat lunch with every day, a brother-in-law who still lives the way he always has. We wonder, “Okay, but does this mean I’m supposed to just walk away from them?” That’s a fair question, and it’s worth sitting with rather than rushing past.

Well, look at the Lord Himself. His critics said of Him, “Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!” (Luke 7:34). The Pharisees grumbled, “This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them” (Luke 15:2). Jesus sat at their tables, and He loved them, and He called them to repentance. But He never once walked their way. They didn’t pull Him toward their sin; He pulled them toward the Father.

That’s the model for us, too. In His prayer for His disciples, Jesus said:

John 17:15–16 — “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”

• Know the difference between a friendship and a yoke. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 6:14) is about binding partnerships: marriage, business, and the kind of closeness where the other person’s direction becomes yours. Lunch with a lost coworker isn’t a yoke. Making him the man you go to for counsel on how to live is another matter.
• Ask who is steering. Go back to the two canoes. You can paddle right alongside someone, close enough to talk and laugh and share the gospel, without lashing your boat to his.
• Watch for the warning signs. If you find yourself hiding your faith around certain friends, laughing at things you used to grieve over, or making excuses to skip church to spend time with them, the current is running the wrong way.

Isn’t This Just “You Are the Company You Keep”?

No. The world’s version treats friendship as a self-improvement strategy for getting ahead in life. Scripture’s version is about holiness and walking with God. And the opposite mistake, pulling away from everyone to stay safe, is just as far from what the Bible teaches.

There’s a popular self-help line that says you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. On the surface, it sounds a lot like Proverbs 13:20, and that’s exactly why it’s dangerous.

• Error one: friendship as a career move. The self-help version tells you to choose friends who make more money, have more drive, or can open doors for you. That turns people into stepping stones. It’s using people, not loving them, and it’s pop psychology dressed up as wisdom. Solomon’s “wise men” aren’t the successful; they’re the ones who fear the Lord. Some of the wisest friends you’ll ever have will never get a promotion or a raise.
• Error two: no friends at all. Some Christians get burned by bad company and decide the safest thing is to keep everyone at arm’s length. But isolation isn’t holiness. Elijah once told the Lord, “I, even I only, am left” (1 Kings 19:10), and God corrected him: there were seven thousand others who hadn’t bowed to Baal (1 Kings 19:18). Elijah felt alone, but he wasn’t, and God didn’t leave him that way.

That said, the answer to bad company isn’t no company. It’s better company. Solomon also wrote, “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly” (Proverbs 18:24). Godly friendships don’t fall out of the sky. They have to be sought out and built over time.

How Do You Choose Friends Who Pull You Toward God?

Choose friends by the direction they’re walking, not by how much fun they are or what they can do for you. Look for people who love the Lord, plant yourself where those people gather, and work at being that kind of friend yourself.

Here are some practical places to start this week:

• Look at where they’re walking. What do they talk about when nobody’s watching? Where are they on Sunday morning? A man’s habits will tell you more than his words.
• Notice how you feel afterward. After time with this friend, are you more eager to read your Bible and pray, or less? Be honest with yourself about the answer.
• Start at church. Your closest friendships should grow out of the local church, among people who are sitting under the same preaching and fighting the same battles. You need them, and they need you.
• Seek out older believers. Rehoboam’s mistake was ignoring the old men. Titus 2:2–4 pictures older believers teaching and steadying younger ones. Ask an older saint to coffee and listen more than you talk.
• Be the friend you’re looking for. Don’t wait for a Jonathan to show up. Go strengthen someone else’s hand in God this week with a phone call, a note, or a prayer.

Who Is the Wisest Friend You Can Walk With?

The wisest Friend anyone can walk with is Jesus Christ, who “of God is made unto us wisdom” (1 Corinthians 1:30). Every godly friendship is a gift, but walking with Him is where true wisdom begins.

Every earthly friend, even the best one, will let you down sometime. But there is “a friend that sticketh closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24), and He laid down His life to make you His own. If you’ve never trusted Him as your Savior, that’s the place to start. Admit you’re a sinner. Believe that Jesus died for your sins and rose again. Then call on Him to save you.

Romans 10:9 — “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

The promise is for anyone: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). If you have questions, our Secure Salvation page walks through it step by step.

So take a look at the canoes tied to yours. Thank God for the friends who pull you toward Him, pray for the ones who don’t, and walk with the wise.

Father, thank You for the friends You’ve put in our lives who point us back to You. Give us wisdom to see which way our closest companions are walking, and the courage to step back when we’re being pulled away from You. Help us to love the lost without walking their way, and make us the kind of friends who strengthen others’ hands in You. Above all, keep us walking close to Your Son. In Jesus’ name, amen.