Truth or Love

A few months ago my sister was at an event during which the speaker asked the audience which is more important: truth or love. The answer, he said, was love.

When I first heard this, I was a bit upset. This is a false dichotomy. Why is there someone teaching that we can only have one or the other?

It is not truth or love but truth in love. As Christians we can’t sacrifice either one. Jesus declared that He is the truth (Jn. 14:6), and as John later wrote, “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8). We are to “speak the truth in love” so that “we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ” (Eph. 4:15).

It is not truth or love. Emphasizing one over the other can lead us into a ditch. If we take truth over love, for example, gentleness and respect take a back seat (1 Pet. 3:15). Others’ perspective and input aren’t important. Our job is to simply tell the truth. Any backlash doesn’t phase us, because “they hate God.”

We don’t even stop to consider how others’ response may, in fact, be our fault. Without gentleness, compassion, and respect, we become the stumbling block. That doesn’t mean compromising; it means in humility valuing others above ourselves (Phil. 2).

On the flipside, emphasizing love over truth, as this speaker attempts to do, can lead us to excuse anything controversial in the name of love. There’s a reason “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” comes before “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37, 39). Our love for God defines how we love our neighbor; our neighbors don’t get to define our love for God.

God created each person with inherent value, dignity, and respect. Love doesn’t delight in evil but rejoices with the truth (1 Cor. 13:6). They go hand-in-hand. True love is about what is righteous.

We don’t need love over truth; we need truth in love. It may be difficult in our day with so much chaos and labeling to know how to strike a balance, but the man who fears God will avoid all extremes (Eccl. 7:18).

Our calling is not to decide what’s more important, truth or love, but to imitate the Person who was the perfect union of both.