Great quote by Mart De Haan over at Radio Bible Class:
Walking in the truth . . . requires not only the active engagement of our minds but also the warm embrace of our hearts.
If we don’t keep both in view, a generous heart can make error look like truth, just as arrogance can make truth look like error. Who can measure the confusion that occurs when truth is spoken with condemnation and self-righteousness, while lies are told with patience and love?
Truth spoken without love is devastatingly harmful. Love expressed without truth is tragically misleading.
That’s why Jesus is described as being “full of truth and grace,” and Paul reminded us to “speak the truth in love.”
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July 18, 2007 at 07:38
This principle hit me hard a number of years ago, and I’ve been striving to seek the balance ever since. I don’t know if I’ve found it yet, but I’m working on it. It’s a great principle to apply both to spritual matters and in seeking to impact the culture.
Who among us has not been burned by either one extreme or the other. I guess this is yet another reminder that Jesus is our example. He did not condemn the woman caught in adultery, but he also said, “Go and sin no more.”
July 24, 2007 at 19:22
Well I think that a subject worthy of consideration. I like that,” To condemn in the name of love or to lie in order to not to upset”.
When people are misled, sometimes you have to slap them on the face or pour a bucket of cold water on them. Bringing someone to come to himself or herself is not cakewalk or a tea party. It takes a lot of prayer and meditation and study to confront one whose road has become crooked.
You’re often labeled a legalist, a hypocrite, a judgemental, a pointer of the finger and many unpleasant things.
When Jesus went about with taxcollector and wild women and publican, he was cursed, abused and name-called by the religious leaders of his time. A winebibler and a freind of taxcollector and sinners, and freind of dogs and samaritans. He was also accussed of being possesed by a demon.
No, Nay the business of pointing out the straight road to some is not a popularity campaign. Sometimes you lay asleep at night asking God forgiveness for taking such extreme measures on some- even insult their “intelligence” or wound them.
Yes, we judgementals, also pray at night hoping that perhaps God has found his sheep that for some reason has strayed away. Yes we pray that perhaps that somehow that there’s rejoicing in heaven that we have turned someone from their error. We just pray that we occomplish God’s purpose for our sometimes, strong words.