Do you want love or the truth?

If you had the choice to have people always be truthful to you, or to always love you, which would you choose? 

To me it seems like an obvious answer, but the funny thing is that I believe that oftentimes Christians (myself included) feel called to be the truth police instead of love ambassadors as we’re called to be. 

The first argument in response to this statement that you’ll hear from Christians operating out of their truth police mode is that making sure people have the truth is the loving thing to do.  I will agree with that, but I must say that sometimes being truthful is not the loving thing.  Do you remember when Simon Cowell on American Idol used to tell people that they were fat?  There are countless scenarios in life where being truthful is actually being unloving.

Love, on the other hand, is pretty much tough to screw up, if we’re talking about the others-focused love that Jesus talks about and not the cheap greeting card definition of love.

I can be obsessive about having the truth.  Part of this is my wiring in being a “skeptical believer” and part of this is being immersed and sometimes brainwashed in a culture that largely values truth over love and Christian values.  I like to know the truth so I dig into matters of faith, religion, and other nerdy pursuits. But, in doing so, I know that even in my desires to know God and possess the truth I will arrive at conclusions where I could be wrong.  It’s bound to happen for me and it’s bound to happen for anyone whether they study the Bible or not.  God-seeking, truth-seeking Christians across many generations have come to different conclusions on many different subjects in the Bible. Some are wrong, some are right.

Fortunately, God doesn’t command us to be scholars and historians and make sure we get it right on every debatable issue in the Bible. We’re not called to be truth police.  Yes, truth matters, especially if it’s the truth of the core gospel message of love, but it’s our seeking truth that matters to God, not our test scores on a Christian doctrines test.

The pursuit of truth is important, but truth isn’t life-giving and it can be uncharitable.  The pursuit of Love (God) is the meaning of life, it’s the source of life, and it’s the only way to truth. 

Photo credit to Gina Norman