Αληθευοντες δε εν αγαπε αθξησωμεν εισ αυτον… (Ephesians 4:15). The verb here “to speak truth” can also be rendered “to do truth”. Understanding that there is a context to how we determine how to translate this, let us not miss the point. It is not possible to confine truth to words and fulfill all that Paul is requiring here. When Paul tells us that we need to speak the truth in love, he is not commanding that we point out one another’s flaws, as if “for the truth of the Gospels sake” we need to beat one another into submission to that truth. I’m not convinced that this verse requires speech every time. It is possible to speak the truth in love by the way we act, displaying with our lives the very words we desire to speak.
In many ways truth has become something compartmentalized, abandoned to the various “areas” of life. Instead of seeing one whole life that is constituted by one Spirit, and one mindset, we often segment life into multiple compartments that each have their own mindset and attitude. There is leak from one into the next at times, but for our work and home lives to be the conducted by the same motive and mentality is a foreign concept to many of us. Truth in that mode of being is not truth, but mere factual statement that fits whatever compartment we’re currently living from. Truth itself must break out of the molds and into all aspects, or else it isn’t truth.
Within theology we have a contention precisely at this point. Theology is necessary for the meditations of the heart and mind, but this is as much a jab as it is a comfort. If our meditations in life are often of the things of this life and this world, then even within theology we will find an overflow of the heart. It cannot be escaped, even by rapture, to attempt to run from what we are. Our meditations will find us out, even in the most spiritual of places. It is not within the intellect of man that we find theology flourishing, but within the heart. It is the overflow of the heart from which the mouth speaks, and our meditations are what we have set our heart upon. Lofty consideration about God is seemingly good, until that lofty consideration is found out to be nothing but self-conceived intellectualism, and cerebral exercise, for the sake of “getting it right”. In this way, theology is not the magnum opus of our meditations, but the great revealer of them. When truth is being dwelt upon, then theology comes out in a beautiful limelight that swiftly raises the tenor of our hearts to palpitate joy and zeal – honest joy and zeal – where the character of God and the perspective of God are kept intact and guarded jealously.
It has been pointed out by Art Katz that those who are true, rather than being taken up with truths, are not silver plated. Back in the days of silver dollars, the way you would test the coin was by throwing it down upon the table or floor. If it rang out with a resounding ping, then you knew the coin was legitimate. If it would hit and make a dull thud, then you knew that it was counterfeit, and was only silver plated. Many times we have silver plated Christians, and in the furnace of life, with various circumstances that are strenuous and difficult, the reality of the condition is revealed. It is not by how biblically correct we are when we speak that reveals the truth of our condition, but the sound we make when we hit the floor. Does our theology represent a lifestyle that is lived in love and patient endurance, or does it reflect rather a lifestyle of preservation and promotion? The ultimate test is found when our meditations result in words spoken in duress.
In the life of David we find a moment of confrontation. Nathan comes with a story that convicts the king of his sin with Bathsheba. There was enough time to elapse for Bathsheba to have the child, and for the child to die, before Nathan went to the king. The king continued to live a life that displays a love for justice and a heart of compassion. Yet, that incongruity of David’s outward command and his inward justification of his own sin was revealed, thus true and deep repentance resulted. How many of us love the truth enough to allow God to send a prophet to expose us in a manner to bring breaking and wholeness? Or are we still desiring to hide our pornography addiction, our self-conceited elitism, and our shameful “doing business” in our everyday lives – which we’ve brought into the church as well? The question for David, which is the question for you and I, is whether our sin causes us to hide from God instead of seeking Him in repentance. “Where are you” was the question asked of Adam, and in a very real sense it was also asked of David in that moment. Instead of recognizing his falling, David went on with life, and the LORD had to send a Nathan in confrontation. How susceptible are you and I to the same clothing ourselves with fig leaves of religion, hiding all the while, because shame erodes our conscience?
Such shame is completely absent in the New Testament. From the book of Acts onward there seems to be nothing but pure expression of union with God, and any moment of lapse is met with prayer, love, and restoring one another gently. Paul writes to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 1:15) that his words came with demonstration of power. I don’t believe that demonstration was miracle and healing, but the day to day life lived out before all. His words rung true because he lived them. He wasn’t hiding in the paralysis of shame, but was completely free, found utterly in the love of Jesus. That man exuded theology that was pure, because he himself was pure. His meditations were upon truth, and truth caused him to ring out loud with a ping when he hit the floor. This man could speak the truth in love, because he was living the truth in love.
When truth is seen as a summation of truths that we profess, and we even categorize the word of God to include church proclamation, we then rob ourselves of what the cogency of God’s prerogative demands. Church is not a collection of individuals who all profess the same truths. It is a collection of individuals, all corporately connected to the same Head, globally and not locally, that have experienced the same breaking in of truth into the inward parts. They all live as pilgrims, knowing that their culture is of heaven and not of the earth.
That culture that is above is expressed in the outworking of daily life, an expression of unfeigned love (1 Pet 1:22). In fact, if we take seriously what Peter is telling us, we find that that have purified their souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, and the evidence of that purification is unfeigned love. Sincerity itself seems to have a ring of “truth” in the connotation. To be unfeigned seems to portray the ideology of being true. How much more of a connection do we need than to see truth and unfeigned love both being wrapped together in the same verse? To love the brethren, even in duress and hardship, is to love the truth and obey the truth. The Spirit itself has a logic by which it operates, and if we’re alive to that Spirit, then we too shall operate by that logic.
And, is it not possible that this love that Peter speaks of is a reflection of 1 John 1:5-7? John posits light, fellowship, truth, and purification all together intertwined. When we perceive things as they are – truth being reality – we are at a place of truly fellowshipping with one another, in sincere and unfeigned love, because we have nothing hindering us from one another. We don’t view by the law, which says that you must be circumcised and follow certain ordinances in order to be right before God, but instead through the Spirit of the Truth, which is through Jesus, to see all things as they really are, and to therefore love one another in the truth. It is not by the flesh that we know any man, but by the truth, which is to say, by the Spirit. Our very perspective changes when we take seriously the walking in truth, living in a manner where our words are truly true, and our hearts titillate with love to all. Such a thing is impossible outside of the working of God in the inner man.
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