When speaking the truth...

How is the truth being spoken?  Is it spoken in love or is it being screamed from a street corner with a bull horn or worse yet, from a pulpit by a screaming, spitting pastor?

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,  I have become a gong or clanging cymbal. 1 Corinthians 13:1

From my own history, I can tell you that I was used to receiving what I believed to be truth without love…and often, that’s how I spoke the truth, as well.  I come from a highly dysfunctional family and it’s all I knew.  I thought it was normal to be critical, mean spirited and overbearing in “truth.”

When I became a Christian and began attending church, it seemed normal to have the truth yelled or screamed at me from the pulpit.  But when I truly began to understand the love of God, this yelling and screaming didn’t make any sense to me.  I began to question where the love was in it.  I can understand being passionate and intense in explaining something, but when it leads to someone yelling, screaming and pointing fingers at those who they consider sinners and calling other denominations cults simply because they believe they have the right to…I cannot stomach it.  I don’t want to hear a word that is being said.  I have been in church services where people, who felt the same way I did, got up and walked out.  There is no love in this type of message, even if there is some truth in what is being spoken.

So, yes…when speaking the truth, speak it in love.  The old saying, “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar” speaks volumes.  Truth…speak it in love or don’t speak it at all…please?!