Speak the Truth in Love

[ITS]

From the discussion of elentics and encounter, what does it mean to "speak the truth in love"?

[Sarah-Jane]

To speak the truth in love is not to affirm truth in other religions (or virtue in a person) that is not there. It seeks to bring the other into a relationship with Christ, the only way of salvation. As such, it must always confront as well as contact. But at the same time, we must be humble. Christianity, as a religion rather than a revelation, is syncretistic. We Christians remain fallen sinners. Part of showing how the work of the Holy Spirit makes us different is to admit to our failings. The love with which we speak must also be practical. Missionary encounter that is not holsitic will distort the message.

[wenwidder]

Speaking the truth in love when it comes to elenctics and encounter means finding the balance between confrontation and engaging in basic community with people. Elenctics unavoidably includes confrontation--"What have you done with God?" is not a cozy question for people to answer. But creating an environment where people are willing to answer it requires the compassionate encounter/engagement of two human beings on equal terms. It involves creating the atmosphere and relationship for the difficult elenctic question to be received...and responded to.

[Gregorio]

The basic question of elentics is: "what have you done with God". Each one is required to answer this question on their day of judgment. It is the love that draws in, cares and connects with people that prompts speaking the truth. It is an emphasis on the reality of life and existence, truthfully you must seek relationship in God through repentance in Jesus Christ. It is not for me to judge where another will spend their enternity, but to point out the truth of the question that Jesus will ask them "what have you done with me?", so that, by the influence of the Holy Spirit, they might be able to answer that question with faith and hope!

[CCCFW]

Speaking the truth in love when it comes to elenctics and encounter means finding the balance between confrontation and engaging in basic community with people. Elenctics unavoidably includes confrontation--"What have you done with God?" is not a cozy question for people to answer. But creating an environment where people are willing to answer it requires the compassionate encounter/engagement of two human beings on equal terms. It involves creating the atmosphere and relationship for the difficult elenctic question to be received...and responded to.

Dear ?wenwidder? in Christ,

I agree with what you, ?Sarah-Jane? and ?Gregorio? have said about speaking the truth in love, and would just like to offer a comment from experience and a word of caution when it comes to ?creating the atmosphere and relationship for the difficult elenctic question ?.?

First about our motivation for missionary encounters, I think we may all agree that the key motivation for the encounters is love, our love for the Lord that prompts us to carry out His Commission and our love for the unsaved souls. I feel that the ?love? factor is not only the common feature of the first three qualities (per Dr. Conn?s lecture and worksheet for Lesson #3 in this course) of a biblical encounter, i.e., incarnational, holistic and sensitivity, but also the common feature of the other three qualities, i.e., contextual, verdict-oriented and God-centered. It may be a love of a different kind, a ?tough? love, like the parents may have toward their teenage children but with a lot of wisdom from God. It is also because of love, we missionaries of the Lord are willing to open our lives as books for others to read, to speak about our struggles and failures in life :( , and our success :D , too, in Christ.

Secondly, about ?creating an atmosphere?, I am not against friendship evangelism or providing ?lead-in? questions that will direct conversations to the topics relevant to salvation. As a veteran who was scared by many enthusiastic Christians who bombarded me with a set of predetermined ?lead-in? questions with an assertive attitude, I sometimes felt that I was only going to be a captive of them and a name to be put on their list of victories. With this kind of experience in the past, I am learning to be more sensitive to my own attitude and to the feeling of the person(s) that I encounter. If by the grace and the power of the Lord, the one I encounter is willing to accept Christ as his/her Savior and Lord, out of my love for the person and for the Lord, I will pray and try my best to follow up with the person(s) or hand over the responsibilities of helping the person grow in Christ to a loving Christian or group.

Yours in Christ,

CCCFW

[Christine]

wenwidder,
I agree that when confronting someone in a loving manner you must consider environment and your relationship with the person. What I missed in your response was the truth from the Scripture to be used as we approach the issue. Our course studied verses in Hebrews 11:1; 2 Timothy 4:2; and Jude 15 to show that the Holy Spirit will work in the life of one who is in a problem if they know what the truth is an have softened their heart to the possibility that they are wrong. Our position as loving spokespeople is to share God's truth and to pray for the Holy Spirit to convict.

[mkennedy]

Speaking the truth in love has two parts: truth in our message and love in our manner. We need to make the truth of salvation through Christ alone the center of our message and to call people to a decision. In the verdict-oriented dimension of encounter, Dr. Conn pointed out that the ultimate goal is bringing people to faith and repentance. What they believe is wrong. At the same time, we can’t enter this task with a haughty attitude. We have to come into it knowing that we’re sinners and that we’re not saved because of any virtue we possess. We’re all saved by God’s grace. Moreover, we can’t just say we love people, we have to live our lives in a way that shows this while we’re speaking the truth. Using the language of our lessons, although our elenctic encounter needs to be verdict-oriented and God-centered, it also needs to be incarnational, holistic, sensitive, and contextual.

[mkennedy]

The basic question of elentics is: "what have you done with God". Each one is required to answer this question on their day of judgment. It is the love that draws in, cares and connects with people that prompts speaking the truth. It is an emphasis on the reality of life and existence, truthfully you must seek relationship in God through repentance in Jesus Christ. It is not for me to judge where another will spend their enternity, but to point out the truth of the question that Jesus will ask them "what have you done with me?", so that, by the influence of the Holy Spirit, they might be able to answer that question with faith and hope!

I once had a conversation with a man who considered himself a Christian but didn’t believe it was right for me to tell people that they wouldn’t go to heaven without faith in Christ. He felt I was judging and criticizing them. My response was that I wasn’t judging them—I was sharing the truth. The truth is that those with faith in Christ will go to heaven and those without it will go to hell. How could it be showing love, I asked, if I knew someone was going to spend eternity in torment and I didn’t try to help them avoid that fate? My point was similar to yours I think. My love for others is what prompts me to speak the truth.

[tycinasilva]

Speaking the truth in love resonates from two premises: (1) the speaker knows truth (or its source), and (2) the speaker demonstrates sensitivity toward the intended audience so as to demonstrate love throughout the communication process.

As followers of the One True God and His Son, Jesus, we, without hesitation, rely upon the Bible as our source of Truth that is unchanging, has multi-cultural application and has the correct understanding of the human situation, both from the Creator’s original intention as well as the fallen human condition.

To communicate truth in love demands that the speaker seeks to understand his/her intended audience and the worldview that shapes their belief and understanding of life. As followers of Christ this communication of truth needs to arise from the biblical injunction to edify.

Jesus is our example of speaking the truth in love. His elenctic encounters were tempered with compassion. He declared God’s truth to people, yet, in love, He saw them as “sheep without a shepherd”. There was no blurred message as He fully understood His audience and impacted them with God’s truth. When the speaker is confident of the truth they possess, the intended message can be communicated in a missionary encounter with sincere compassion.

[tycinasilva]

The “confront as well as contrast” idea is critical to an effective elenctic missionary encounter. If there are not differences presented in the encounter, there can be no verdict arrived at. For the believer, a holistic approach to confronting will involve love as the motivation – to see the hearer receive and respond to the biblical truth incarnated in the person of Jesus. Humility of spirit will flesh out love - for we ALL were at one time “separate from Christ … without hope and without God in the world”. This attitude will open windows of receptivity in the mind and heart of the hearer.

[joel]

Ty, I concur with your words, “there was no blurred message as He fully understood His audience and impacted them with God’s truth.” In my opinion, the most damaging witness for the sake of Christ in India has been the Catholic Church’s refusal to speak the truth. In their attempt to love the Hindu, they have compromised the truth. Syncretism is rampant and very frustrating when a conversation begins with “you guys and the Catholics all stand for the same thing, right?” Jesus never blurred his message. He understood his audience. His love for them outweighed his need for them to joyfully accept his message. His message was truth accepted or not.

[joel]

In elenctic encounters with people outside the faith of Christ in India, it is the motivation of love that compels me to speak the truth. My love aims at truth. It supports truth. For those outside of faith in Christ, we should deal with them in love, but never budging from the truth. There is an unloving way to speak the truth, but that way typically drives people farther from Christ. Speaking the truth is not always a soft way to speak, or Jesus would have to be accused of lack of love in dealing with some folks in the Gospels. But in general, love shapes truth into words and ways that are patient and gentle. I know for certain that words spoken with a lack of love in my ministry context in India will be tossed aside as the babblings of a westerner.

[philemon18]

I think we as Christians can come across as very arrogant about our faith. We are so confident in our belief system, that we are very quick to say what we know in the hopes of winning non-Christians to our perspective. In so doing, we can alienate those we want to reach. We can be quick to dismiss the history and upbringing of people. We must not be so caught up with being the messenger that we forget to care about our audience. We need to relay more than just the words of the gospel. We need to relay the love, through actions, of the gospel as well.

[philemon18]

Speaking the truth in love when it comes to elenctics and encounter means finding the balance between confrontation and engaging in basic community with people. Elenctics unavoidably includes confrontation--"What have you done with God?" is not a cozy question for people to answer. But creating an environment where people are willing to answer it requires the compassionate encounter/engagement of two human beings on equal terms. It involves creating the atmosphere and relationship for the difficult elenctic question to be received...and responded to.

I absolutely agree that there really is no easy way to confront people with rethinking truths that they have held to dearly for long periods of time. It probably is not a question to be raised without some element of relationship being established. Raising this topic too early could ruin a friendship. Yet, not raising it at all could ruin their life. We must incorporate tact in all our elenctics encounters.