“Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.”
― Warren Wiersbe
I think sometimes, as Christians, we forget this.
We think that as long as our ideas are philosophically and theologically true, we can share them in ways that are offensive and divisive. And so “being right” becomes more important than showing love or reaching people.
Now that’s not to say we should’t speak the truth, because we know “love without truth is empty” and not really love at all.
But let us not fall for the trap that truth comes at the expense of love, or vice versa.
As Donald Miller writes:
We commonly believe that the Evil One wants us to teach bad theology, and I suppose he does. But what he wants to do more is to have us teach right theology in a way that devalues human beings, insults and belittles them, and so sets them against the loving message of God.
So if we teach right theology in a way that is condescending, we are just as guilty as being heretics. That’s why the Bible spends as much or more time talking about love as it does about doctrine. My guess is we love doctrine because it makes us feel superior, but neglect love because it calls for personal sacrifice and vulnerability.
And so we become personality heretics, speaking the truth, but teaching heresy.
