It seems many in the church today struggle speaking truth. Many seminaries and churches discount the truth of the Scriptures and spend enormous amounts of time trying to make it more politically correct for those who want it that way. The clear teachings of Scripture are ignored while we practice exegetical gymnastics with the texts so no one is offended. I've sometimes referred to such preaching as an easy-greasy gospel that goes down smooth, but in the end it is poison resulting in the spiritual death of those who believe it.
A friend of mine recently requested prayer as he was dealing with a difficult passage of Scripture in a recent worship service. Although he would have preferred avoiding preaching from that text the Lord would not let him do so. I know how he felt because I've been there. It's never a pleasant thing to preach from a text you know has the potential to upset people, but we've been mandated to preach the whole Gospel. This was one reason I always preached through an entire book of the Bible each year. I had to deal with the hard passages as well as the more comfortable ones.
Various studies have recently found that people are drawn to those churches that are not afraid to preach the truth. A study of formerly unchurched people found they sought churches that stood for something, that believed something and preached their beliefs. Another study of young people found the same thing. They were seeking something solid to build their lives upon. They were leaving those churches and denominations that had abandoned the truth of the Scriptures for those not afraid to preach truth. Those who claim they must water down the Scriptures or avoid the hard passages in order to reach people could not be more wrong.
A minister once accused me of targeting certain people because of my beliefs. I explained that I was not targeting them. In fact, I was demonstrating more love and concern for them than this minister because I was willing to warn them of the dangers they were facing due to the life choices they were making. I often hear that the church should show more compassion for people as Jesus did, but I noticed that Jesus always spoke truth to those He encountered. When He offered forgiveness to the woman caught in adultery He also told her to go and sin no more. When Peter rebuked Jesus for saying He was going to Jerusalem to be killed Jesus was quick to rebuke Peter in return for not understanding this was God's plan. When Jesus began to speak hard truths to those who followed Him we read that many turned away and followed after Him no more. Nowhere do we read that Jesus went running after them begging them to come back. Rather He turned to the twelve and asked if they also wanted to leave. Again, genuine compassion for others compels us to speak truth to them if we want to help them transform their lives.
I will be the first to admit that such truth must be spoken in love, and not all churches and ministers demonstrate much love through their teachings. The Scriptures were never meant to be used as a weapon to beat up on people. I once sat through a sermon in which the pastor ripped the people for over 30 minutes. I visited the church that day because I had heard from people I respected that this was a weekly occurance. He thought he was preaching the truth. In reality, he was being a jerk, and the church lost some very wonderful, hard-working Christian people. Speaking the truth isn't about beating up people with legalistic prooftexts and trying to pound them into submission.
Speaking the truth in love is done when we love people where they are in life, walk with them through their lives and answer their questions honestly and clearly without apology. If we have developed a relationship with them in which they trust us enough to ask why we believe the things we do they will be willing to listen. We can then point to the Scriptures as we explain why we believe what we do and trust the Holy Spirit to take that Gospel seed to begin a transforming work in their lives.
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