stonegatestandard.com

Ephesians 4.15 says that we are supposed to be “speaking the truth in love” so that the whole body of Christ can grow into what it ought to be.  By preaching the gospel of Christ and by talking about the great teachings of the Lord and Savior, we encourage people to do what is right and live the way they should.  There should be no confusion that “the truth” being talked about here is the message that comes from God about Jesus and the resulting conclusions that should be drawn from the gospel message about the way we live.  However, there are some other applications that can be made about truthfulness, and this article is going to focus on some of those things.
    It has always interested me that Paul’s words here could be literally translated as “be truthful”.  Our willingness to tell the truth about everyday things is crucial to our ability to communicate spiritual truth to others.  It becomes a matter of character.  Can people trust that when I tell them something it is true?  Can people believe me and depend on what I say?  Often, whether it ought to be this way or not, people will accept or reject the gospel message based on how truthful they perceive the messenger to be.  It is a question of credibility.
    In the first century, God worked with the apostles of Christ by performing signs, wonders, and various miracles to give credibility to the message, and in a way, to the speakers themselves.  Today, we don’t have those things.  Certainly we can reference the words of Christ and the letters that his apostles wrote, but we do not have the commendation from God that those people had.  We have to gain our personal credibility from somewhere else.  We have to be truthful in everything.
    The first way we can do this is very simple: do not say things that are false.  We must become people who have a passion for things that are true.  Every time before we open our mouths to speak, we should question the truthfulness of what we are about to say.  Do I know for certain that what I am about to say is true?  Do I know that it can be backed up by factual evidence?  If we can answer affirmatively to questions like these, then we can speak with confidence. 
    Sometimes we may be uncertain whether we have all the information on a subject.  Truthfully, it is nearly impossible to know all the information on just about any subject.  When we find ourselves in situations like that, we should either be quiet or make it known that we have suppositions or beliefs based on incomplete knowledge.  There is nothing wrong with stating what you currently know or currently believe, but we must be very careful that we don’t overstate ourselves.  Our credibility depends on it.
    A second way that we can avoid losing credibility is by avoiding vague or indefinite language that makes it difficult for people to understand what we are talking about.  There are times when we are tempted to use vague language to describe our activities when we think it will either keep us out of trouble or help us get what we want.  We must become strong enough to resist that temptation.  When we use vague language, people will begin to doubt what we tell them.  They may not doubt that we are telling them something truthful, but they will begin to doubt to what extent they have been told the truth. 
    The greatest difficulty with vague language is that sometimes it is necessary to protect ourselves or other people from unnecessary harm.  When Samuel was going to appoint David as king, God instructed Samuel to use vague language with Saul by only saying “I have come to sacrifice to the Lord” (1 Samuel 16.2).  While it was true that Samuel was going to offer a sacrifice, he was also doing much more than that.  He deliberately used vague language to protect himself from the king’s wrath.  There may be times when we find ourselves in a similar situation, however, I do imagine that those are far and few between.  In our daily lives, it is much more likely that we will find ourselves tempted to use vague language to shield ourselves, or someone else, from guilt or scrutiny.
    A third way that we can destroy our credibility with others is by using technical language.  This isn’t regarding technical jargon, but rather refers to language which has a very specific, technical meaning that is different from the every day, casual usage of the word. 
    Typically the reason one might do this is to leave themselves an excuse, an out or a loophole if things do not go as planned.  Think of contracts and how people are often wary of entering into them.  That’s because most people have had some experience with technical language and the loopholes it can leave for the unscrupulous and dishonest to slip through.  Can you remember the feeling you had when your insurance company told you the hurricane damage would not be covered because it was caused by “blown water” not “rain water” or “flood water”?  That’s the same kind of feeling we leave with others when we use technical language to trick them or otherwise take advantage of a situation.
    A fourth way that we can destroy our ability to teach the gospel is by allowing people to assume things.  Now, sometimes there is nothing we can do about the assumptions that people make.  However, we may be tempted to use language that leads people in one direction when we really mean something altogether different.
    Something like this will usually occur when we are trying to make ourselves look better or more credible than we really are.  If some friends are talking about trying out for the football team at Lamar, we may talk about having walked onto a team before.  In the context of the conversation, the friends would understand our “walk on experience” to mean on a collegiate level because that is what everyone was talking about.  However, they merely assumed that.  We really walked onto a pee-wee team in 6th grade when everyone else also walked on.  It’s not our fault what they assume, right?  Wrong.  If we intentionally lead someone in the wrong direction, we are lying to them.  We are helping them to arrive at incorrect conclusions.  Shame on us.
    While there may be times and places when certain tactics are necessary to avoid harm, that is usually not the case.  Often when we are trying to mislead people it is for selfish reasons which, of course, we will try to rationalize as necessary.  However, if we are going to be concerned with Paul’s instruction to “be truthful”, we will try to remove every form of falsehood from our lives.
    The gospel is the most important message in the world.  It is terrible to think that someone may refuse to listen to me preach the gospel because I have ruined my reputation.  I am not responsible for someone’s choice to deny the Christ, but I am certainly responsible for doing my best to present the message.  May God grant us all the patience, courage and wisdom to be truthful in every way and in all things.