One of the big problems I find with "telling the truth in love' take where Christians are concerned is that often there is so very little love present! All too often the 'love' exhibited is more like a sneering putdown or a barbed and condemnatory mugging!
I like the Galatians passage for this, as I understand it, is how we tell the truth in love.
An example from my own experience might help illustrate this. I met a young man who was a go for it Christian and yet, not matter how hard he went for it, he remained at best static and at times further away from his goal. This seemed to me to be a little confusing and as I befriended him I realised that something didn't add up. I tried Bible studying with him, met him socially and introduced him to more Christians and still things were going wrong.
One day, whilst out eating I broached the subject and mentioned that the lack of clear water and the absence of peace was very much like daimonizomai, which we'd call 'possession' but was in fact better seen as oppression or restriction.
The bloke went white as a sheet and asked me if "I knew?" I replied that I knew nothing so what was he going to tell me. What followed was about forty minutes of cottaging and visits to 'male only' clubs. Over the next few months we worked together with his 'problem' and cutting a long story short he's now married with three kids and an elder in his church.
Relationship and openness coupled with a knowledge (he hoped) that I wouldn't 'blow the whistle' and would not walk away meant that I was able to tell him the truth in love and not only was he not lost but he was also restored.
The other way would have been to act as some here do (or at least write) and tear into the bloke and tell him what an abomination he was before the Lord. I could have called on him to repent and belittled him - or wept with him and stood by him (as I believe Jesus would have done).
Not an isolated case but one that demonstrates that to tell the truth in love takes more than a Bible, a placard and a big Gob (coupled with a sense of one's own importance and righteousness perhaps?) - it requires the relationship and the permission that that brings.
HTH
No comments:
Post a Comment