Truth & Love
by Jeff Faull
For as long as I can remember, I have wrestled with the perceived tension between truth and love.
Have you? Church leaders we encounter often seem to project an either/or approach to truth and love in their lives and leadership. We tend to emphasize one or the other; truth or love, instead of truth and love.
But a balanced reading of Scripture doesn't present this false dichotomy. Consider these two statements, one from the Old Testament and one from the new.
Unfailing love and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed!
Psalm 85:10 (NLT)
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
1 Cor. 13:6
Love and truth are not mutually exclusive. The union of truth and love has too often been presented as a simple balance or a mixture. We might say, “He’s a little too high on the truth scale,” or conversely, “She puts too much emphasis on love.” However, you will never have too much love, and you will never have too much truth. Truth doesn’t need a little falsehood to soften it, nor does love need a little harshness to toughen it.
Truth and love are not opposites. They are not mutually exclusive. You can apply or demonstrate either of them incorrectly. Certain demonstrations of love or truth might not be appropriate for the time and place, but there is never too much of either. Both are eternal. Both are the essence of God. Both are integral to the other’s definition. When we speak the truth in love, love wins, and truth wins. Love doesn't win without truth, and truth doesn't win without love.
Jesus perfectly demonstrates how to manage this connection between truth and love, and if we are to live and lead like Jesus, we must emulate His posture and approach.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 15:12-13
See where this goes? It doesn’t create some nebulous, fuzzy, half-baked unrealistic sentimentalism, but both truth and love are inherent in the definitions of each other.
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.
1 John 4:16-17
Walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Ephesians 5:2
These instructions lead us to love like Jesus loves, and love who and what Jesus loves.
I find it interesting to consider the moments where Jesus’ love is described for specific individuals, where we have not merely broad categories, but specific individuals singled out as loved by Jesus.
Mark 10:21; Jesus looked at the rich young ruler and loved him
John 11; Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus
John 15; His exceptional love for His 12 disciples
In all of those examples, Jesus prioritized love AND truth.
What does this mean for my leadership posture?
People say, “Christians ought to be known more by what they are for, than what they are against.” Sounds reasonable. But sometimes it is a way to silence truth. Often when you are for something, it naturally necessitates that you are against something.
If I am for a well-manicured lawn, I’m against weeds, bare spots and shaggy grass.
If I am for safe roads, I’m against potholes, lack of signage, dangerous bridges, and blind spots.
If I am for privacy, I’m against spyware, unauthorized data collection and sharing of my personal information.
If I am for Godliness, I’m against ungodliness.
If I am for morality, I’m against immorality.
If I am for freedom, I’m against tyranny.
Jesus told us what He is for, while also expressing what He is against.
Alfred Tennyson was a famous English poet for Queen Victoria. He wrote Charge of the Light Brigade, Crossing the Bar, In Memoriam and other famous works. He was criticized at times for being overly sentimental. He wrote phrases like, “better to have loved and lost...” and “Love is the only gold.”
Somewhere I read that when early printers, using handset type, received an order to print a collection of Lord Tennyson's poems, they immediately ordered hundreds of extra letters L and V for their presses. They knew Tennyson. He used “love” so often in his poetry that the average set of type could not possibly supply all the necessary letters.
It is in unconditional love and uncompromising truth that God deals with us. Any attempt at living and leading like Jesus will be characterized, undergirded, and suffused by His truth and love.
The hills of truth we are willing to die on, must also be hills we are willing to live and love on. Let’s lead like Jesus.
