OVERCOMING FALSE RELIGION WITH TRUTH SPOKEN IN LOVE
by Tim Thomas
May 8, 2006
Ephesians 4:14-16
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14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (NIV)
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The "then" in verse 14 seems to be in response to the "until" in verse 13, where it said "until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." With the five-fold ministry in operation, we expect to see a maturing in faith and a fullness in Christ, which results in believers no longer be tossed back and forth by the "flavor of the day" teaching that makes its circuits. The teaching that Paul is talking about is not simply the various "emphases" or "movements" that are probably normal adjustments of the church to a changing culture. Paul is talking about doctrines that were contrary to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul and the other apostles spent a good deal of time and energy correcting wrong teachings in the Church. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians is largely a correction to a "anything goes" mentality in the church. Paul's letter to the Galatians is about a doctine of obedience to a performance standard -- something Paul battled frequently, because of the sect of Jewish people who were trying to force Gentiles to obey the Jewish law. Then there were the Gnostics that challenged the faith, as we can see in various writings, including the book of Romans. They believed that the body was evil, and so it didn't really matter what we did with our bodies, because our spirits were saved. We know Paul was talking about these false doctrines because at the end of verse 14 he refers to the propagators as cunning, crafty, and deceitful.
Of course, most of these propagators of false doctrine would not have seen themselves like that. They probably felt like they were teaching the truth, but that was not the case. We have many today teaching false doctrines. Do I dare name any of them? Certainly one of the most dangerous is legalism, a doctrine that insists not only on a trust in Jesus, but a complete agreement on a particularly detailed theology and interpretation of Scripture to be saved, or who require a performance standard from believers, lest they be said to have lost their salvation!
Other false beliefs might include the "invent-a-God" movement (I made this name up, but whatever the proper name, a lot of people seem to follow it), which says something like God is whatever you believe him to be, and that anything you believe about God is okay, as long as you believe in God. We might add another strain of belief that takes a low view of the Bible, and that seems to think if Jesus and the writers of the New Testament knew all the things we know today, they would want to take back what they said or wrote in the Bible! By the way, I'm not against the idea of understanding the things that are written in the Bible in light of what the culture of the day dictated as norms. I'm just saying that Jesus was not "unenlightened" when it came to understand people's hearts and how we sometimes resist doing the right thing by God's standards.
As the Church matures, we will be able to speak the truth about false teachings, and the Church will be in general agreement to what is spoken, and turn away from what is a distortion of the truth. Verse 15 calls us to speak the truth in love. I've often felt that I've had the truth for others, but things have gone better when I've withheld speaking out until I got the love to go with the truth. People are often able to receive strong words of correction when they are delivered with a genuine love, reflecting a desire to see the best for them. If truth isn't presented in love, I even question whether it is God's truth.
In the Western Church we often have two unhealthy extremes: one which I just wrote of, speaking truth but not with the love of God in our heart for the people who are the target of the truth. The other, which is probably more common, is the failure to speak the truth at all. We just mind our own business. We're just being politically correct, I mean, who are we to judge? But the truth is that we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers, and there are times to give loving words of correction.
We seem to confuse judgment and condemnation. Judgment is simply discerning the truth, while condemnation pronounces "final judgment" on someone else. We are not called to be blind, just to be wise. We are called to forbear (put up with another's weaknesses) but also to restore gently those who are caught in sin. There is a fine line between these things, but a line we need to discern. It is not kindness that keeps us from trying to free people from things that have them trapped -- it is fear of rejection or being thought to be intrusive!
We see this line of thinking from verse 15 leads naturally into verse 16, where Paul emphasizes the Body of Christ, where each part -- each one of us -- plays our vital role in building up the whole Body. That means that we are there for each other, loving one another, and helping the other parts do their part, and supporting them to grow to be what they were created in Christ to be.
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