How To Speak The Truth In Kindness

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there to every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. (Ephesians 4:12-15)

When Paul is speaking to the Ephesians in the passage above, he points out an important characteristic that describes a mature follower of Christ. That characteristic is being able to speak the truth in love and kindness. 

In today’s Christian culture, there seem to be two extremes when it comes to speaking the truth in love to other people. On one side, you have people who deliver the truth in a harsh, judgmental way, lacking compassion and empathy. And on the other side, you have people who are kindly affirming actions and behaviors that don’t line up with truth because they don’t want to hurt others’ feelings.

If we’re not careful, we will begin to fall into one of these camps. We’ll begin to either forsake the truth for the sake of being kind, or we’ll forsake being kind for the sake of the truth. Neither of these paths are good options, because truth and kindness can coexist. In fact, they must coexist, according to Paul’s words.

Thankfully, there is a way to balance the positive aspects of these two methods. We should not be afraid to speak truth to those who are walking in sin and darkness, but we should be able to do so in a kind, loving, and caring way. The goal is not for us to point out what other people are doing wrong so we can make them feel bad about themselves. The point is to help people live in victory rather than in sin by pointing them towards Jesus Christ. 

My pastor growing up used to say, “There is never an excuse to be unkind to someone.” I believe it’s important that we all live with that phrase at the forefront of our minds. We can and we should boldly speak the truth of God’s Word, so let’s do our best to speak that truth in kindness.