Truth: Not the Most Important Thing

I want to begin by saying that I do appreciate what Steve Deace tries to do on his radio show, Deace in the Afternoon, on WHO radio in Des Moines. There are very few people who are so firmly rooted in their conviction as Deace is. I applaud him for trying to bring a Christian worldview to the airwaves of Iowa. That doesn’t mean that I am fan, because I am not. It is my opinion that Steve is rude, childish, and arrogant, which doesn’t serve the cause of Christ very well.

That being said I want to point out that Deace made an error on his radio program today. It isn’t the first time he has made it, which has led me to believe that it is what he truly believes. His error is the belief that truth is the most important thing. I agree that truth is important. We can all agree that it would foolish to follow something we knew to be a lie. Truth is essential and we need to pursue it the best that we can. The problem is that there is one thing, one element in life, that is more important that truth. That element is love. Consider what the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:


If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (verses 1-3; ESV)

The apostle Paul makes it clear that it doesn’t matter what we do, say, or understand, because if we don’t love then it doesn’t mean a thing. Love is the key. Don’t miss understand, life would be meaningless if we had love, but did not have the truth, and so this is not an either or thing, but it is a priority thing. When it comes to influence, people will forget the arguments that we make, but they will remember the time we pour into their lives. Love not only builds the bridge over which truth travels, but it also adds credibility to the truth that we teach. Think of it this way: Love makes truth more effective.

When Jesus dictated to the apostle John the message that was to be read to the church at Ephesus, He focused on this issue of love and truth. Revelation 2:1-7 reads:

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

“‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." (Revelation 2:1-7; ESV)

Jesus finds many good things about this church family located in Ephesus. They were hard workers, they did not tolerate false teachings, they endured hardships, and they hated the works of the Nicolaitans. This was a church family that fought hard for truth and correct doctrine.

Despite all the good things they were doing, Jesus found something that was very wrong. The problem was so serious that Jesus warned them that if they did not repent then they would be removed from His presence. What was wrong with the Ephesian Church? Their problem was that they had lost their first love. They weren’t worshiping God like they should and this flowed into the reality that they were not loving people the way they should. They stood for truth, but that truth was meaningless because it wasn’t founded on love. Jesus doesn't tell them to give up the truth, but to return to love. Again we see that it is the combination of truth and love. The two go together.

To love doesn’t mean that we accept everyone and that we don’t hold people to standards, nor does it mean that we don’t confront those who are wrong or speak God’s Word to the world. It does mean that we do it with a humble heart, a gentle spirit, and a compassionate attitude. We have to be very aware that our conduct and our tone influence the way the truth is heard. The follow of Christ realizes his/her entire life is an exhibit of God’s love and truth.

Truth is important, but it is not the most important thing. What gives truth its power are not facts and arguments, but love. We can have correct doctrine and sacrifice our lives for the cause of Christ, but if we don’t have love then it means nothing. There are many important parts of the Christian life: truth, holiness, integrity, faith, and hope, but the greatest feature of Christianity is love.

*I want to point out that I updated this on April 14, 2009. I wrote the original in ten minutes on April 13 so I could post something before I went to bed, and I don’t think I was very fair to Steve Deace (even though it is very unlikely he will see this), and I wanted to revise my initial thoughts.

Called to Fight

{Ephesians 6:10-12; ESV}

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Yesterday (Monday, March 16) I was listening to Deace in the Afternoon on WHO radio out of Des Moines, Iowa. I am not a fan of Steve Deace, I think he is an arrogant self-righteous jerk, but he usually gives me something to think about, and that is why I occasionally listen.

Yesterday his topic for the first two hours, of which I only listened to the first 30 minutes, was about why social conservatives have lost the cultural war. He played an audio clip of Dr. James Dobson’s resignation speech in which Dr. Dobson admits that while some battles have been won, the war up to this point has been lost. While I don’t know Deace’s entire take on this, I do know part of it had to do with the fact that conservatives, especially Christian conservatives, have comprised too often.

While that may be so, I would like to offer another possibility: God has never called us to fight this war to begin with. Yes, we think we are standing up for God’s truth by fighting this way and getting in bed with the politics of this world, but we have forgotten the true cause of Christ. We are like the church in Ephesus who stood for truth and hated evil, but had lost their first love. You know what the consequence was for that? The consequence was that Jesus was going to come and remove them from His presence (Revelation 2:1-7). We are not just to stand up for truth and hate evil, but most importantly we are to love God and to love people. If we are not loving then we have missed the point of God’s call in our lives.

Because we have lost our first love we have not focused on what is truly important, and the consequences are all around us. While we have been out there trying to defend marriage, clean up the airwaves, and protect the unborn child our church buildings were emptying. It is now to the point, according the a statistic I heard at the Preaching Teaching Convention at the end of February, that on any given Sunday 17 percent of the population attends church. On top of that most of us realize the total lack of maturity that exists in the people that do attend. While fighting this war we have lost the more important battle for the hearts of people.

While we have been trying to create a culture that we are comfortable with we have allowed the younger generation to slip away. Do you realize that that 3 out of 4 Christian students who go off to college lose their faith? No wonder our church families are getting older and older and are on the verge of dying. We have let Satan have a whole generation without even putting up a fight! Christian parents haven’t fought for the hearts of their children by being people of faith and Churches succumbed to the pressure of culture and sought to entertain the youth rather than instruct them in God’s Word.

Here is the sad reality of all this: the “culture war” would never have been lost if the American Church would have focused on the right thing to begin with. The Church has given up her place to be the light in the culture because we stopped influencing individuals. When people live by faith in Christ Jesus then things like defending marriage, abortion, smut on television, and drug addiction become non-issues because God’s truth is influencing their hearts.

Make no mistake about it, we have been called to fight, but we are not called to preserve a culture, but to save the hearts of people. So how do we do that? We do that by being the people, and thus, the Church God called us to be. To be more specific we do that first and foremost by worshiping God for who He is and what He has done. Constantly in the New Testament the writers refer us back to the reality of God’s love shown to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. God knows that we need constant reminding of His love in order for us to worship Him.

Not only do we need to worship Jesus, but we need to get serious about teaching. This requires preparation. I am so tired of preachers and teachers (I am guilty of this myself) not preparing their lessons and doing just enough to get by. Have we forgotten that life and death hangs in the balance? The Truth is way too important to be handle so lightly.

Along with preparation comes prayer. In Ephesians 1 and Colossians 1 we find to great prayers of the apostle Paul in which he prays for his readers to have wisdom and understanding and that the eyes of their hearts be opened to the light of God’s truth. We need to invite God to be part of the teaching process. He wants people to know His truth, it is important to Him, and so let us make it important for us as well by inviting God to teach alongside of us.

Finally, we need to be people of faith. We can’t influence the world, the culture, if we are not any different than they are. The Church in the United States is a comprised and sick church. We have allowed ourselves to be influenced by the culture to the point that we are now students of culture rather than of Scripture, we are materialistic and drowning in debt, and we don’t hate our sin enough to struggle to get rid of it.

I want to leave you with the opening paragraph from Henry Blackaby’s book Holiness:

“It is the people of God who can truly shape a nation. Many look to great leaders or powerful governments to shape a nation. But most likely, leaders and governments will not restore a nation once it is on the downward slide. While leaders sand governments can influence a nation, there is no group of people who can determine the coming years of a nation like God’s people” (p. 1).