Philip Gulley tells the story of his debates in Grade 6 with his best friend Joe. Philip was a Catholic and Joe was a Jehovah’s Witness. Each tried to convince the other that they were wrong. While Gulley would go on to abandon his beliefs in God, he would often think about Joe and reflect on their playground arguments. And he concluded that their attempts to convince each other of right and wrong were misguided. He longs for a world where we don’t “concern ourselves with the perceived errors and heresies of others.” Something about his story and his conclusion ring true, but are they? Are we too uptight about discerning what’s true? Should we just focus on being better people? I’m not convinced that kindness and goodness can flourish apart from the truth. Here’s why.
1. You can’t become a better person without truth
What we do flows out of what we believe. For example, suppose you believe that there’s no God, no judgment, and the strong conquer the weak. In that case, it makes it much more difficult to sacrifice for others and show compassion in hard situations than if you believe in a God who holds us accountable and calls us to love our enemies.
Ironically, Gulley doesn’t seem to recognize that he’s still the same boy that he was on the playground arguing with his friend Joe. The only difference is that he’s arguing for moralism instead of Catholicism. He’s trying to get people to be less argumentative—which is a worthy goal, in one sense—and arguing that truth doesn’t matter to achieve that.
Jesus taught the exact opposite. In John 17:17, He prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” To sanctify someone is to make them holy—to make them a better person, more like God. The truth of the Bible is what does that. Truth is like a tuning fork for a piano. Without it, we’re left trying to play in tune by ear, with no standard to guide us. Jesus urged His followers to reflect deeply on His words and promised that doing so would free them from sin. In John 8:31-32, He said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
2. Truth is essential to receiving God’s help to change
If God didn’t care about truth, then maybe we shouldn’t get so worked up about it either. But according to the Bible, truth is critical to worship God and experience His nearness. Jesus taught, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). We tend to balk at this idea today, but how close could you be to someone who stubbornly misunderstood who you were and insisted on calling you Brad when your name was Fred? David had it right in Psalm 145:18 when he said, “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.”
To ignore truth and just try to be a better person is to ignore the help that God alone can give to help us see our blind spots and overcome our resistance to change.
3. Hypocrisy—not truth—is what turns people off
When I mentioned the conclusion Gulley came to as he reflected on his playground arguments, I said that there was something about it that rang true. I think that’s because he and his friend just seemed to be fighting. They probably didn’t have the maturity to genuinely long for the other’s good. They probably weren’t praying for each other or living out the truths they so ardently argued for. And so the arguments sounded petty and proud. Many people never graduate past this, and the Bible confronts this as hypocrisy. For example, 1 John 3:18 says, “Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” If your faith is all talk, then it’s not genuine faith. Real faith is passionate about truth but lived out in deeds. And Christians are called to “[speak] the truth in love,” (Ephesians 4:15) and follow Jesus who came “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
If we abandon grace or truth, we’ve proven Gulley right, but I’m not convinced that it will make us better people. Let’s be passionate about truth, but not just to be right. Let’s seek God for the truth that will set us free. And when we share that truth, let’s do it with just as much grace as Jesus did. The world needs more of both right now.
In awe of Him,
Paul
