Truth and Love
by Doy Moyer
Truth and love are not at odds. Both are needed simultaneously. Truth without love can be unkind, cold, and heartless. Love without truth will be arbitrary, compromising reality, and without standards. However, together, united, truth and love will be purposeful, compassionate, and committed to what is best for all.
Jesus is the greatest example of blending truth with love, and the account of the “rich young ruler” provides a good setting for this point. Recall that the young man came to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to inherit eternal life (Mark 10:17-31; Matthew 19:16-30). There are several approaches to take, but I would like to focus on one key point. Jesus both told the man the truth and, at the same time, loved him.
The young man came to the right person and asked a good question, but he was not ready to hear what the Lord had to say. His commitment would only go so far. His willingness to follow ended at the crossroads of wealth and faith in the only One who could save Him. “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions” (Mark 10:21-22).
Truth and love go hand in hand because it takes real love to tell someone the truth. This is risky because telling someone the truth can come across as uncaring or mean when that truth does not match what the person wants to hear. The temptation to compromise the truth is ever-present to avoid sounding offensive or unkind. Imagine Jesus saying to the man, “Don’t worry about it. You’re all good. Just keep doing what you are doing.” Ironically, that would not have been loving because it would not have spoken truth to the man, and he would have been given a false sense of security. That’s anything but love. Real love will speak truth.
To dismiss truth, love must be redefined and twisted to fit a false narrative. The young man might have walked away and justified himself by thinking, “There was no love in that. If that’s love, I don’t want any part of it.” I suspect that he knew better. The temptation we face today is built on redefinitions of love. “Love is love,” we often hear, but besides the circularity of that, it is grounded in the notion that we can define love however we please. If we feel it, then it must be true, and anyone who loves us will not contradict that.
Truth, however, does not play this game. In dealing with fallout from error, Paul asked his Galatian readers, “Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (Galatians 4:16). What we might perceive as an attack on us for something we want to be real could, in reality, be a loving appeal to truth. The truth is set, unwavering. “It is what it is,” we say. If that runs counter to our feelings, then what are our options? Ignore it? Twist it to our own desires? Charge those who tell it that they are unloving? Or repent and conform ourselves to it? The heart may “want what it wants,” but at the end of the day, the heart will not overturn truth.
Once again, none of this would justify being cold in telling the truth. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “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). It takes a level of maturity to speak truth in love. It requires an understanding of both truth and love, along with the wisdom to gracefully provide both (see Colossians 4:5-6). This is neither easy nor impossible. It does, however, take patience, continual adjustments, and persistence.
The love and compassion of God should never be in question, even for the rich young ruler. Neither should His truthfulness. God is love (I John 4:8). This is why we cannot redefine it, for in doing so, we attempt to redefine God and thereby twist what is true. When we deny self and listen to God, then we will find true love and compassion without compromising reality and truth. Hear the Psalmist:
“For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.” (Psalms 103:11-14)
Let us be dedicated to both truth and love. One without the other will result in something that is neither true nor loving. Jesus came to show both, and He did so perfectly. Let us never walk away sorrowful.
