{"id":13535,"date":"2018-05-17T06:00:37","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T10:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ben-sternke-live.prev17.rmkr.net\/?p=13535"},"modified":"2025-03-07T18:54:58","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T22:54:58","slug":"stop-love-and-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gravitycommons.com\/es\/stop-love-and-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s Stop Trying to Balance Love and Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

I heard it just the other day listening to a podcast. The pastor said, “We have to do both love\u00a0and<\/em> truth. We can’t just be\u00a0loving…<\/em> we also have to be truthful.”<\/p>\n

This sort of sounds<\/em> wise, but in fact I think it’s deeply problematic and several levels. So my proposal is simple: let’s stop saying this entirely. Let’s stop trying to balance love and truth.<\/p>\n

Think about it for a second with me:<\/p>\n

Love isn’t deceitful, is it?<\/h2>\n

When we contrast love and truth like this,\u00a0the vision of “love” our language presents is a kind of “niceness” that’s apparently willing to\u00a0deceive<\/em> others in order to make them feel better.<\/p>\n

When I hear leaders contrast love and truth like this, the implication seems to be that “love” is the\u00a0easy<\/em> thing to do. It’s simply placating people, saying whatever needs to be said to maintain warm fuzzies.<\/p>\n

And if that’s what “love” is, then I agree that it is a terrible strategy for life and leadership. But what people are thinking of when they use “love” like this isn’t actually love (as Jesus defines it, at least).<\/p>\n

No that’s, not love. The nervous managing of other people’s emotions is a form of\u00a0codependence.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0We call it Hang Out culture, where making sure everyone else is happy is the #1 goal.<\/p>\n

What a weak vision of love!<\/strong> We’re doing ourselves (and those who listen to us)\u00a0no\u00a0<\/em>favors by talking this way. Contrasting love and truth implies that “love” is less than truthful. We’re capitulating to a vision of love that falls\u00a0far<\/em> short of the New Testament’s vision.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Love in its fullness is seen in Jesus<\/h2>\n

Contrasting love and truth cheapens our vision of both love\u00a0and<\/em> truth. It makes love into “niceness” and truth into “toughness,” as if the truth is always negative. Much of the time, the truth that Jesus speaks to people is\u00a0positive.<\/em> It’s truth about their identity. Truth about their authority. Truth about their belovedness!<\/p>\n

And it’s all done in love.\u00a0<\/em>What the New Testament proclaims is that we see what God is really like in Jesus. And what we learn when we look at Jesus is that “God is love,” as the Apostle John put it. What does\u00a0that<\/em> love look like? That’s the question.<\/p>\n

It’s scary for a lot of people to realize that, according to the New Testament, love isn’t part of an equation that needs to be balanced by anything else. Rather, love is the whole ball game! It’s remarkably easy to miss this, I think because we’ve been hypnotized by our culture’s vision of “love.”<\/p>\n

To jog our memories, here’s a cursory overview of how central love is to the vision of the New Testament writers.<\/p>\n