In Ephesians 4, Paul shares a vision for how a Christian community can become mature in Christ. Paul says that God has provided apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to equip and build up God’s people. He goes on to say that as the body of Christ grows and becomes mature, it will no longer be blown around and tossed back and forth by whatever cunning or crafty teaching that comes our way. In contrast to that way of living, Paul describes a different way of being in the world. The phrase that Paul uses to describe this way of being is most often translated “speaking the truth in love.” What does Paul mean by this phrase?
Often, I have heard people appeal to this verse in defense of a moral obligation that they believe Christians have to speak up, proclaim and preach biblical truth no matter how difficult or uncomfortable or harsh it might seem to other people. In this line of interpretation, the “in love” part of the verse is usually applied to the motives behind one’s decision to speak up. In short, our love for God’s truth and our concern that people not be deceived should compel us to speak up and profess truth (as we have defined it) whenever we have the opportunity, no matter how unpopular it might be.
While honesty, truth-telling and speaking up about injustices and wrongs is an essential part of community building, I don’t think that our words are the only (or even the main) thing that Paul had in mind with this phrase. In Greek, the phrase that Paul uses is alētheuein en agape. The Greek word for speaking or saying (laleō) is not used here. Instead, Paul simply uses the verb form of truth (alētheia), which certainly could include speaking honestly (it is used in this way in 4:25) but is much broader.
John Stott presents this argument in his commentary on Ephesians, “’Speaking the truth in love’ is not the best rendering of [Paul’s] expression, for the Greek verb makes no reference to our speech. Literally, it means, ‘truthing (alētheuontes ) in love’, and includes the notions of ‘maintaining,’ ‘living’ and ‘doing’ the truth.”(1) Peter Williamson and Mary Healy’s commentary on Ephesians also picks up on this point of translation and they explain Paul’s main idea in this way:
Rather than being deceived and unstable, Christians should be living the truth. The Greek here uses the participle of a verb derived from “truth”– comparable to “truthing” – that contrasts with the “trickery,” “cunning,” and “deceitful scheming” that precedes it. Paul calls us not only to be loyal to the truth, but to do so without being arrogant or harsh: he urges us to live in the truth out of a desire for the good of others, acting in love.(2)
Although this may seem like a minor point of translation, I think it has significant implications for how we might apply Paul’s words to our everyday lives. Theologian Miroslav Volf identifies some of these points in his book Exclusion and Embrace:
Commentators usually render this term “speaking the truth in love.” But the verb used in the original is not “to speak” but “to truth,” which in addition to speaking the truth may mean cherishing, maintaining, doing or living the truth… [Paul’s point is that] untruth holds captive both minds and lives and therefore cannot be overcome only with right thoughts and right words. It takes a truthful life to want to seek after truth, to see the truth when confronted by it, and to say the truth out loud without fear.(3)
If Paul’s accent is not on the words that we speak (although it certainly includes our words), but the way that we live our lives, then the most important question we should be asking ourselves in response to this verse is not, “What should I say because I love God?” Instead, the key question may be something like, “What should I be doing in order to align my life to the truth of God’s love?” Sometimes, this aligning of our lives may involve speaking up. At other times, it may involve shutting up. The important thing is that in whatever we are doing, we are allowing our actions to be shaped by the bigness of God’s love for the world that surpasses all knowledge (Ephesians 3:17-19). I think this way of interpreting this phrase makes so much sense in the context of this section of Paul’s letter – a section that is focused on articulating a new way of living that corresponds to all the grace and love that we all have received from God in Christ (Ephesians 4:1-3) in contrast to a life that is governed by a deadened sensitivity toward others (Ephesians 4:17-18).
Thanks to the internet and social media, there are now many platforms and digital spaces available to us where we can post/speak our opinions, thoughts, and beliefs for others to read/hear. These tools open up amazing opportunities to share things that are important to us with others across huge geographical distances, but if we feel a sense of closure or completeness in simply posting (speaking) our truth for others to read, we have missed the point of what Paul is talking about. The power of whatever truth that we have to share will only be realized as we do our best to work it out through concrete actions in our daily lives and relationships. This action, and the corresponding good fruit that comes from it over time, is what authenticates a message that is really true in contrast to other messages that we might speak or hear that prove to be false or unreliable. I think this is what John was getting at when he wrote, “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. This is how we know that we belong to the truth” (1 John 3:18-19, NIV).
As somebody who has spent a lot of time in school researching, writing, reading, analyzing, and discussing words, I realize I can get pretty fixated on trying to say things just right. The words we say to ourselves and one another are certainly important, but I can let the task of careful and precise talking and thinking distract me or, even worse, excuse me from the most important task of putting those ideas into practice. I need to be reminded that the most powerful witness to truth that I have is not my words but my life. A life shaped by love is the truest, realest thing in the world, and a life shaped by love can communicate truth powerfully whether or not I have exactly the right words to go with it.
