...About Truth in Love

The Apostle Paul’s love for the Bride of Christ compelled him to cover her with God’s truth. He understood the only real way to express love for the church was to preserve truth. Truth without love is harsh and empty, nothing: “If I have the gift of prophecy [truth telling] and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). Truth and love are inseparable. Paul warns his young protégé, Timothy, to be on guard for false teachers who were trying to remove truth from the church. Paul instructed Timothy to take charge of the situation and to command the false teachers to quit teaching. He then insightfully adds that the basis of the command, the motive behind it, is love, “The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5). Paul kills two birds with one stone of instruction. Don’t condone falsehood, but don’t abandon love in the process.

Peter underscored this dynamic principle in 1 Peter 1:22 – “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.” We purify ourselves and our churches with truth. God cleanses us with His truth so that we can love one another properly, with sincere, deep love from a transformed heart. If we separate truth from love, we distort what Christ has given us. We receive His truth and it roots us, establishes us and enables us to love as He loved.

The New Living Translation renders Ephesians 3:19 as, “May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” We cannot conceive the expanse of Christ’s love for us. It’s too great! Yet, isn’t it just like God to allow us to experience and to be empowered by something we can’t fully understand? Christ’s love fills us with God’s incredible power, enabling us to know and speak His truth.

We have the power to respond to others, to life and to conflict as Christ did because we are given the full measure of God in our lives. However, we see many different responses in how church members relate to truth and to one another as conflict escalates. Some prefer to avoid conflict at all costs, literally. Others seem to relish conflict. Not only do they enter a fray, they are not beyond starting it. They have a strong opinion about the situation, and will speak it regardless of the damage that ensues. All too rarely, there are the precious peacemakers who understand the biblical principle of speaking the truth in love.

The Message paraphrases Paul’s instruction in 1 Timothy 1:5 that we examined earlier: “The whole point of what we’re urging is simply love – love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God. Those who fail to keep to this point soon wander off into cul-de-sacs of gossip. They set themselves up as experts on religious issues, but haven’t the remotest idea of what they’re holding forth with such imposing eloquence.”

“Cul-de-sacs”of gossip. That’s the street we wander down when we veer either direction from full truth or complete love. Judgment without truth makes one an imposter. Truth without love is empty. Love without truth is vain. All are dead-end streets. One must know the truth, possess Christ’s love, then speak the truth in love.

[by David & Diane Noble]