A former co-worker once told me she was meditating on the idea of Speak Truth in love, and she saw me. She said she saw me and visible words literally flowing from me. It was both awkward and humbling. We spoke very little of it ever again. As she explained, it was something she just felt she had to share.
I’m still grateful that she chose to share it. If I am honest, that was a point of time in which I was slowing beginning to bolster myself during a dark and desperate time of my life. I have always been mindful that God, in and mysterious way, used one of his children to build me us.
Since then, I have also felt a special connection to this particular passage, and feel a bit more of an obligation to it than all the others (if that’s somehow possible). It’s no coincidence that I find Edwards may have had a similar kinship.
Jonathan Edwards Resolution 34
Edwards’ Resolution #34 (in my modernized language) 34. Resolved: When telling stories, speak only the pure and simple truth.
Speak Truth When They Are Hard Truths
Most folks will probably tell you they view Ephesians 4:15 as a mandate to speak hard truths to others. That allowing someone to go on believe a lie or untruth is to enable them to live a fake existence. That they are deceiving themselves.
That may be factual to some degree. Certainly there is that responsibility. However, to think that this is the whole meaning of the passage would be equally deceiving of ourselves.
It’s often said we are to speak truth in love. Sure, it’s a great suggestion, yet it is more than having tough conversations. It’s about motive and purpose. It’s about speaking THE truth in love.
Speak Truth With The Right Motive
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. – Ephesians 4:15 (NIV)
Earlier in chapter 4, Paul encourages us to “…live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” In addition, he says that we should seek to be “completely humble and gentle” as well as “patient, bearing with one another in love.”
We sometimes have to have hard conversations, yes. And we sometimes have to tell people something they don’t want to hear. It may be that they don’t want t hear it. Or, it may be that they are not yet ready to hear it. Conversely, though, it may be something that is approached with impure motives. That hard “something” may be something that is said in a rash way that is less than patient.
Rarely, if every, is such conversation born of love.
More likely, it is born of selfish desires and ambition. Before you “speak truth” make sure you speak it for the right reasons.
To Speak Truth Is to Speak THE Truth
When considering this passage, we have to be sure we are considering the passage in its totality. You see, it is just just “speak truth.” It is “speak THE truth.” That means this mandate is gospel directed.
What is less often shared when people reference “speak the truth in love,” is what follows:
“…we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
Our role as Christians is to seek unity of the body.
We do that by speaking THE truth in love.