The Love About Truth
Why Followers of Jesus Must Refuse to Choose Between Love and Truth
I don’t know if I was just oblivious to it prior to these last 5 years of my life as a leader or not, but in my opinion, it’s never been more difficult to give a doctrinal statement on topics of sexual morality and ethics. There’s always some video clip that can be edited without its broader context and presented in such a way that paints someone as a heretic or someone to “mark and avoid”. That’s not to say that there are not statements of bold error and heresy being made on social media (believe me, I’ve heard some doozies), but not every statement of perceived contradiction is one. Sometimes, it’s a complementary “other side of the coin”.
Dangerous Ditches
I’ve often said that through modern church history, we have generally fallen into one of two possible ditches:
We think we love people more than God and apologize or practically remove any instruction or prohibition His Word gives us that is not wholeheartedly affirmed by the system of this world. -or-
We sacrifice love in our declaration of truth, seeing love as some moral and theological weakness, confusing it for affirmation of immoral practices.
What option does that leave us?
Before we take a shot at answering that question, I do want to make it clear that I see the current separation of compassion from truth as one of the most dangerous errors the Church is facing right now. Not to say there isn’t an equally dangerous ditch of self-righteous activism and legalism on the other side of the road, but the church is drifting to the side of moral relativism and grace without repentance. Those who remain in either of these extremes will likely never be satisfied by a call to Christ’s balance of grace and truth — but that’s okay, because our goal is faithfulness and the approval of the Lord, not man.
That said, knowing that humanity has a tendency to over-correct with reactionary theology, let me give you a guardrail to help you avoid that unfortunate circumstance.
This Is the Way
What I am about to propose is not some “third way” blending of a little bit of love and a little bit of truth in order to make a palatable version that pleases the “self-righteous” and “progressive” among us. Rather, what I am going to lay out here is “the way”… the way of Jesus. All love, all truth, all the time.
We see this exemplified in His interaction with the Rich Young Ruler in Mark 10. To paraphrase a bit, a young man of influence approaches Jesus with a question about what he must do to have eternal life. Some might argue that this wasn’t a question at all but rather a public display of his own righteousness, but I digress. The text highlights a key for us in verse 21 (ESV), “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him…”
No matter what you think about the motivations of this young man, Jesus loved him. You might think that this interaction leads to the young man following Jesus for the rest of his life. But (spoiler alert) the young man leaves “sad and sorrowful” because though Jesus loved him, there was something more important than God in the heart of that young man. Jesus loved him enough to tell him the truth: that his heart was bound to his wealth.
“So that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” — Ephesians 4:14-15
One thing we have to acknowledge right away is that Paul isn’t diminishing the need for conviction and boldness in his instruction to grow in maturity. He states clearly in verse 14 that we are to stand firm against the “winds of doctrine” that are rooted in “deceitful schemes”. This isn’t a passive or indifferent stance that he is suggesting, but rather a position that our hearts’ motivation must be the good of those who are hearing the truth.
This points out a challenge for us in our current cultural moment, which is emotionally supercharged and seems to reward intellectual “slam dunking” on someone who disagrees with you. Jesus didn’t say the world would know we are His disciples by how angrily we denounce those who sin differently than we do. He said that they would know us by our love (John 13:35).
A Cultural Missionary Moment
Understanding our role in the culture is vitally important. We as Christ followers need to see that we are no longer part of a “Christian culture”. We no longer have a society, at least in Canada, where values rooted in a biblical framework are held by a majority, whether they follow Christ or not. This means we need to take on the role of a missionary in our own nation doing the work of an evangelist (2 Tim 4:5).
Peter speaks to this in 1 Peter 3: 15-17:
“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.”
Peter exhorts the Body to examine our own heart and verify that Christ’s character of grace and truth is ruling within our inner world. Just like Paul in Ephesians, Peter doesn’t call into question the reality that you and I will need to engage people who disagree with us, and give a thoughtful, reasoned response for why we live under the Lordship of Christ. Yet, what distinctives does he say must be connected to this engagement? “…gentleness and respect”.
We ultimately have no control over how someone responds to the message of the gospel or a biblical worldview. What we do control, however, are our motivations and our responses. Let’s rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to help us speak the truth with hearts full of the love of God.
This is the way of Jesus, so what other option is there?!
This article was originally published with Back to the Bible Canada, a ministry dedicated to leading people closer to Jesus through the faithful, expositional teaching of God's Word.