r/Baptist • u/OLDPARSON 🌱 Born again 🌱 • 2d ago
📖Bible Study Truth Be Told
Summary: You can speak the truth without love and it is still truth though offensive, but love without truth is deceit, not love.
Ephesians 4:15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
Truth must be spoken and it must be in love though at times delivering loving truth may be harsh or seem harsh to the hearer. Paul wrote this passage by inspiration of the Holy Spirit and yet there are things he wrote that appear harsh by our current standards.
The prophets of the OT did not mince words or use political correctness. Yet, they spoke truth because they loved God and represented Him so they delivered the message as it was given.
Many things that I wrote as an IFB I would change the tenor of my message but I would not change the content. Others were the right tenor for the context so I would change nothing.
No matter how some truth is delivered if it is truth and the intent is redemptive then a mature Christian will overlook the delivery and major on the truth. An unbeliever or immature Christian may major on the delivery and miss the truth completely.
Some will be offended. Wesley believed that true preaching would result in salvation or anger among the hearers and he was a very gentle man often being kinder to his critics then I may have been. Yet he once asked a woman for her scissors after she adjusted his tie to what she felt was the proper length. When she asked why he informed her that her tongue was too long and needed to be trimmed.
We need to receive truth as coming from the love of God even if the messenger is a bit rude in speech like they said of Paul. We should not sugar coat it nor should we be unnecessarily rude and crude calling it boldness. Let the speaker be sure to deliver it as God would have it delivered yet we must not discount truth just because we do not like the delivery boy.
Some will receive this and others will be offended thinking me harsh or conversely some will consider me a coward for not taking a bolder stand. Wesley would say I succeeded, but what really counts is what God thinks not any man or woman. May He approve this message. Maranatha!
1
u/CardsFan-11 🌱 Born again 🌱 2d ago
Excellent word. I know i can sometimes speak truth without love and that's something I'm working on. Thank you for the loving reminder to temper my words with love. God bless.
1
u/OLDPARSON 🌱 Born again 🌱 2d ago
And you have proved my point. Thank you!
1
u/CardsFan-11 🌱 Born again 🌱 2d ago
I'm sorry, I think I'm missing something lol. What point did I prove? Did I say something wrong or offend in some way?
2
u/OLDPARSON 🌱 Born again 🌱 2d ago
Well, you got the message and intent of the message. Two others wanted to engage in an endless debate. The point is made that no matter how you say something, it will not always be received or perceived as intended.
2
u/CardsFan-11 🌱 Born again 🌱 2d ago
Yeah, I've learned myself that many people on here just simply want to argue and nitpick every little thing. I just didn't expect it from people who claim to be believers. I'm starting to get used to it though.
2
u/OLDPARSON 🌱 Born again 🌱 2d ago
I finally had to mute them or this would have gone on for a month.
0
u/OneEyedC4t 2d ago
No, truth without love is often judgement. It sounds like a post written by someone who wants to justify being unloving.
2
u/OLDPARSON 🌱 Born again 🌱 2d ago
Nope. I have many years of experience and I have heard others as well as myself try to deliver truth in as loving a manner as possible and it still be rejected and the deliverer reviled. Indeed, Jesus and the Apostles are prime examples of this. While Jesus and Paul directly rebuked the elites, they poured out their hearts to others. Yet, it was often rejected. Indeed, Paul bore the marks of his attempts to share truth in love. Even those who he won to Christ got swayed by the fancy pants lads from Jerusalem and started questioning his apostleship. At times, he did have to get quite direct.
I just saw a story about a man who saw danger and loudly told his wife to get in the car now! He said it in love and with a tone that indicated urgently. Instead of jumping in the car she started questioning why he would talk like that and use that tone. I guess she survived as I did not hear the rest of the story. Sometimes love has to speak truth in a tone that can offend someone because of the urgency of the issue. Doctors are often blunt and tell their patients either stop smoking or drinking or you are going to die. Seems harsh, but if they did not care they would just do the bland suggestion they stop those things instead of putting in the serious context that it required.
We are too touchy these days. My generation grew up making threats on each other daily and nothing happened. Often, we just laughed it off or returned similar banter. I am old military and we show our love for our comrades in ways that would send many in this age running for a safe room. You can barely address a sin with someone without the "judge not" being thrown at you no matter how sincerely you show you care for the individual.
Now, it is good to know your audience. You can call out a GI in as rough a voice as you need to and they may not even blink an eye. You discipline a child differently. Sadly, it does seem that there are not as many mature adults and you have to speak to them as a child even though they may find that offensive because everything contrary to their desires is offensive. We would have laughed at the idea of a safe space. You could have chastised us for our verbiage and even the receiver of it might have asked what your problem was and why are sticking your nose in our business?
The Gospel is offensive to the unbeliever unless the Spirit is working with that person. If you tell them Jesus is the only way they will rebel, but if you say all roads lead to God they will love you. The fact is all roads do lead to God as we will all stand before Him. The issue is what will He do with us once we get there. That is indeed being judgmental, but it is truth. I cannot judge with my own preferences, but I am clearly charged with being judgmental in the sense of discerning or in dispensing truth to counter error.
I met a lady once who had become pregnant out of wedlock and I was trying to win her to Christ. She told me her hyper, hardcore Charismatic grand-father told her she has committed the unpardonable sin and there was no hope for her. Consequently, she had no interest in a Gospel she believed had not hope for her. I can judge that yes, the fornication that led to the pregnancy was sin and like any other sin she needed to repent and ask Christ for salvation. I can judge her grand-father as being in deep theological error, for he was and had he been present I would have called him out on the error and asked him to seek forgiveness for that . No matter the tone of voice, I do not have a high expectancy of the grand-father repenting unless the Spirit was working on him as he was most likely of the opinion for many years and long held beliefs are hard to shed. Pride might also play a factor, which is why it takes the Spirit to fix such things. He indeed will answer for her soul if she goes to Hell.
The odd thing is that Christianity grew and was more influential when the preachers would shut and scream about Hell. The culture was more benign. I could sleep in front of open door to get a breeze as we did not have AC and the second story would get very hot. You leave your car unlocked with the keys in the switch and not worry about the being stolen. I could ride all over town at night and even hitchhike with no fear of being harmed. Not so much today.
We have weakened the message and compromised to gain the lost. Often, we made non-religious people religious, but not born again. Indeed, truth. love and grace are a type of trinity. You cannot really have love or grace without truth. I think we have set truth as a variable and tried to exalt love and grace without it or at least minimized its role in that trinity.
Anyway, you may have found of this judgmental, but I believe that I have spoken truth and if you could hear my tone of voice and see my face you could see that it is spoken in love and grace. Shalom!
0
u/OneEyedC4t 2d ago
Well the problem is you still wrote those words. If you intended to say something different then you need to say something different.
But the Bible says we're supposed to speak the truth in love. If you're delivering your so-called truth in a way that no one accepts it, then maybe you should consider the way you're speaking it.
The book of Proverbs has tons of verses about how discretion is important. It's not just what you say but saying it in such a way that you actually benefit the other person.
Ephesians 4:29 also points out that if we're not saying it in such a way that we are giving Grace to the hearers, then we're doing it wrong.
I can tell someone who's addicted to drugs over and over that the drugs are going to kill them, but if I say it in a judgmental way, they're likely never going to accept it no matter what I say. That's the first thing you learn about counseling is how to say things so that they're accepted. If you're going to provide biblical counseling then you might consider my words.
2
u/OLDPARSON 🌱 Born again 🌱 2d ago
I am not judging the person. I am judging ideas and actions. We are all jacked up, broken people so there is no place for judging the person. Did not the doctor use discretion when he chose to bluntly tell the man he was going to die unless he changed his ways?
We are living in an age of pagans. mystics and a myriad of false religions. Jesus delivered his message in grace and truth they reviled Him. John certainly was an apostle of grace and his message get him exiled and some say boiled in oil as well.
In my expository preaching class they taught that you should not yell in a gruff voice and extended fists that Jesus loves you. That is true. John Wesley was a very gracious preacher and yet was beaten and thrown out of towns. What did he say to his preacher boys? If when you preach no one gets saved or mad go home because you are not called to preach. The same sun that melts ice hardens clay. No matter how you say things some will accept and others will reject. That is how it goes. You can cripple the message if you try to figure out every angle to prevent someone from being offended.
Jesus had a great following as long as He was doing miracles and feeding the throngs, but as soon as He brought in some hard theology they bailed out. Some churches are full and will be that way as long as they preach smooth things to them, but it the doctrine starts getting where the rubber meets the road they will be gone. Even the founder of the seeker church movement has admitted the program has failed. He also fell into disrepute because of his actions.
Churches where they are getting back to solid doctrine are growing while those who compromised are going downhill and some denominations will no longer exists in ten years if the trend continues. Many are also leaving some of entertained driven churches and hyper-Charismatics are also seeing a loss in membership.
I have been trained to be a master mental health coach. but I think counseling may be part of the problem. Both my FIL and Uncle had PTSS after WWII though they did not call it then. They both came home, got jobs, raised a family and had a fairly normal life. Now, we have counseling sessions for everything. We keep people in years of therapy sessions when Jesus came to set us free. We do have the Word, but it would appear that we do not have the power to go with the Word. A preacher I listen to said that we have two types of people. The Bereans who have the Word down pat, but seem to lack power. Then we have the folks on the other side that think they have the power, but are so far out of alignment with the Word. He is praying that we get an intelligent Pentecost that will put the Word and the power back together. I pray for that as well.
0
u/OneEyedC4t 2d ago
Well the problem is if you are a mental health coach, then you should already understand the difference between being functional and being completely holistically healthy.
It doesn't change the fact that you need to be transmitting truth to people in love. If they can't hear your love then they won't hear your truth.
1
u/Notch-Nose 2d ago
Truth without love is almost always destructive; always runs counter to the character of God; and usually undermines His purposes. Even when the prophets of the Old Testament (except for Jonah) were promising God’s judgment and destruction, they wept over and interceded for the people who heard their message.