Truth Tellers

Christians are the people of the truth. Truth telling is one of the Christian characteristics. The opposite of truth-telling is lying. In commenting on “speaking the truth in love,” Klyne Snodgrass notes that “a truthful person is one who lives out his or her covenant obligations, which includes both what is said and what is done. Therefore, both truth and love bind us to the other person, for we cannot live truth and violate covenant relations” [Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), p. 206.]. 

The truth of the gospel demands us to be a truthful person who speaks the truth and confronts what is deceitful. Truth telling builds up one another; lying destroys it. Often time, truth telling seems to create disharmony on the surface. But this kind of constructive disharmony exposes the pseudo-harmony people enjoy in a Christian community. If there is anyone who should practice truth telling among all others, pastors should be the first ones to demonstrate it. Pastors have to be able to tell the people of God that, in Scott Peck’s words, evil has to do with lying (see Genesis 3). Lying defiles the souls of one another and violates covenant relations.

Lying creates distrust that destroys unity.

Disunity arises not because of truth telling, but lying.

“A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will not escape” (Prov. 19:5, ESV; also see 19:9).