Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Ephesians 4:25-32
One of the most persistent misconceptions I run into both in myself and others who are on this journey toward living together in Gospel community as the family of God is that if we’re doing it right there will be little to no conflict, minimal disagreement, and definitely no outright fighting.
By this thinking if there’s tension in the room we must be doing something wrong. If a person leaves a community gathering hurt and frustrated, it must be due to a lack of spiritual maturity on someone’s behalf.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth. For real community to develop requires conflict. If there’s never conflict or disagreement in a group of people it’s not because they’ve got everything figured out. Most likely it’s because people don’t feel safe revealing their true thoughts or feelings, so instead they simply stuff them.
Real community requires conflict
You can’t bring two humans together and not have conflict. That’s just the reality of our sinful world. Even if you remove any intentional sin from the equation there will be conflict when you place people in real community together.
If you’re married you know this. If you’ve been friends with someone for an extended period odds are you’re familiar with this. You’re going to have moments that you disagree with the people you’re closest with, whether it be over what song to put next on the road trip playlist, how to discipline the kids, or whose team is better. And you can’t get to know each other in truth without that kind of conflict.
If there’s not conflict people are hiding the truth
If you’re in a community and there’s no conflict or disagreement it’s probably because people are hiding what they truly think or feel. Hiding one’s true self is particularly prevalent here in the midwest, where it’s seen as more appropriate to simply stuff your feelings and opinions. Better to choose disconnection than to cause tension.
Paul describes this hiding of our selves as “falsehood,” and admonishes the Ephesian church to set any form of it aside. “you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor.” We must not be false-faced toward those with us in the body of Christ.
When we wear masks and cover the truth of who we are, what we think, or what we feel we disconnect from those around us and prevent them from being able to receive and give grace.
Speak truthfully to your neighbor
In contrast with the falsehood of dissembling and hiding, Paul calls the believers to “speak truthfully” because we are all members of one body. Your stomach doesn’t lie to your head about when it’s sick. Your hand doesn’t lie to your mind about the pain it feels when smashed in a car door. If that does happen it’s because of some disorder in the bodily systems, and generally the sign of something seriously wrong. The same is true in the body of Christ.
If we are to operate as a healthy community we must speak truthfully to one another. But note this well – Paul’s words here aren’t permission to bluntly state how you dislike the way so-and-so chews loudly or so-and-so is socially awkward. “Speaking the truth in love” isn’t a matter of simply saying whatever comes to mind.
Instead it’s a call to gentle, graciously let others see your heart, as Paul clarifies a few verses later when he writes:
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”
Speaking the truth means speaking what is helpful for building others up. To “speak truthfully to your neighbor” in the body of Christ is to seek their good by pointing them to who they are in Christ and who Christ is in them.
Speaking truth inevitably leads to anger
Paul’s words after he calls Christ followers to “speak truthfully” are incredibly comforting to me: “In your anger do not sin.”
Why state this after telling people to speak truthfully to one another? It seems like a strange leap in his flow of thought. What reason other than the fact that when we speak the truth it can often frustrate or anger people? It’s a comfort to me because it takes the pressure off of us to control others’ emotions.
We are called to speak truthfully, not to manage the feelings of others in the community. Too often I speak truthfully about my own heart and it leads to the other person feeling hurt or frustrated, which in turn leaves me feeling like I somehow failed at “speak the truth in love.” But our job is to manage our own heart so that when we do speak truthfully we don’t do so in a way that is sinful.
When we begin as a community to move into speaking truthfully and honestly to one another, there will be moments of frustration, conflict, and anger. There may be times where people leave the conversation feeling misunderstood. But, praise God, that’s not the end of the relationship! Far from it. In the Kingdom of God conflict and tension become pathways to connection and restoration.
Grace replaces anger with forgiveness
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you,” is Paul’s concluding call for God’s people in these verses. Oh how important kindness, compassion, and forgiveness are in a Gospel community! As God forgave us, we are now empowered to forgive one another. Grace replaces anger with compassion and forgiveness.
Don’t you long for a community like that? A place where you can reveal who you truly are and be confident that even if there is conflict or anger in the end there will always be kindness, compassion, and restoration? The moments where I have experienced that in our community here in Fargo are some of the richest and most beautiful experiences of the Gospel’s reality that I’ve had. It’s not natural to be a community that is both truthful and kind; both honest and gracious, but it is – by God’s grace – open to us.
So, my friends, let us commit to speaking truthfully to one another for the sake of building one another up in Christ. And if there is any conflict or anger that results, let us commit to giving to one another the same kindness, compassion, and forgiveness that God has given us in unlimited quantity in his Son. As we do so we will see lives transformed, a searching world discover the goodness of God, and find a beautiful sense of purpose and belonging that can be found nowhere outside of God.
No Comments