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Speaking the Truth in Love

Dan Sullivan · December 6, 2016 ·

The other day a few of us were talking about “speaking the truth in love”. We, of course, were trying to correct a guy that was not doing that. It was a tough conversation because I think the guy was holding onto truth tighter than he was holding onto love. The challenge for me during that conversation was to hold on to truth AND love at the same time. It’s easy to hate a hateful person, but that would put me in league with the hateful person out of hate. I wanted to be in league with him because we are both in Christ.

Later in the day, I looked up that verse. We always quote “speak the truth in love” but what is its context? What else goes with that saying? It turns out a LOT.

The opening of Ephesians 4 is about unity. Paul urges the Ephesian church, from prison, to do whatever they can to maintain the unity of the Holy Spirit by being at peace with each other. It is by humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love that this happens.

That is probably the first red flag. We achieve unity through humility. The further we get away from humility, the further away we will be from unity. At the last supper, when Jesus was addressing the disciples who had spent part of the meal arguing who was the most important, He told them that “all men will know you are my disciples” by their love for one another. Love and unity go hand in hand because you can’t love each other and be fighting.

How about this part:

[11] And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, [12] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
(Ephesians 4:11–12 ESV)

I have heard ‘prophets’ and ‘teachers’ say before that they are ‘just telling the truth.’ I can agree with them. All too often, though, they are speaking the truth without love. Considering the high stakes of Christian unity and the Body of Christ, you would think that truth would not have so killed off love in the Church. 

Love is bearing with others. Love is considering that you don’t have to tell your brother where he is wrong, but you can instead teach by your own lifestyle and loving conversation instead of the truth grenade. Jesus did yell at the scribes and the Pharisees, but that was after a long series of loving face to face conversations. 

Prophets and evangelists (good news tellers) are given to build up the body of Christ. This building up doesn’t happen by chopping off the sick parts and denying friendship with the parts that don’t look like us. Think of how the human body works. If a part is sick or injured or just plain wrong, the body sends white blood cells, antibodies, extra blood and oxygen, platelets, etc until the wound is healed. What if that is how we responded with truth? 

What would happen if we held on to truth (which is Christ) and increased our love? What if we increased our love even more for those that we disagree with, or are even our enemies? That is one of Christ’s most compelling teachings and that fits right in line with these things from Paul and Christ’s words of forgiveness from the cross. 

[15] Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, [16] from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.  
(Ephesians 4:15–16 ESV)

Bible Study Catholic, conflict, enemies, Ephesians, grace, protestant, sin, truth

Easter Vigil at St. Ben's

Dan Sullivan · April 20, 2014 ·

Two of my sons and I went to the Easter Vigil with our community. It was good and brought up a lot of great conversation before and afterward- and a couple hilarious statements. I told my 11 year old that I was proud of him for staying awake to the very end, and he said, “Yeah, especially with the pope talking in his lullaby voice.”

I had to correct them about 286 times that this was the Bishop and not the Pope. I’m still not sure they get that part.

The other great part is when you are sitting there with kids that have memorized all of the books of the Bible and the first reading is from Genesis, then the 2nd reading is from Exodus, and then their eyes get real big. “Are they going to read from every book of the Bible tonight!?” one of them asked me the first time we went.

Here was the noteworthy quote from the night. I’m not sure if Bishop Thompson was saying it himself or if he was still quoting the Pope, but it’s good and true whoever said it:

all who evangelize are instruments of resurrection power.

Featured, Handwritten Blog, Short Quotes bishop, Catholic, Evansville, pope, Sermon

Churched by Matthew Paul Turner: Review By Mimicry

Dan Sullivan · October 14, 2008 ·

When I was in second grade, I was of the age, just like everyone else in my second grade class, to have my First Communion. Mental maturity or physical maturity, or personal belief for that matter, didn’t really come into play, but since June of 1981 had come and gone and I lived until September and the start of second grade, I was ready for The Lord’s Supper.
Now before you can do something so Holy and powerful as eat the flesh and blood of Jesus, you have to confess your sins, so a few weeks before you have your First Communion, you have to undergo a much less fun, and less celebrated, First Confession. My 14 classmates and I sat at Holy Spirit School and Mrs. Vote explained to us what would happen.
“Whenever you are ready, but don’t wait too long, go up to Father and say ‘Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.’ and then he will ask you to tell him what you’ve done’.”
I forget the exact script, but that was the jist of it. Then, in order to help us think up some sins that we could confess, she began to make a list on the chalkboard. Lying to our mother, lying to our father, lying to our sister, lying to our brother, lying to our grandma, lying to our grandpa, cheating in class, fighting with our friends… “You want to tell him about three things that were sins that you’ve done”
THREE! I looked at the board. I had lying to my mom down, but I was an only child so that wiped out a lot of my options. All of the fighting I did fit more under the heading of getting beat up, so I couldn’t confess that. I started to think through the 10 commandments. I loved God and didn’t bow down to statues… I said “gosh” instead of “god”…I went to church on Sundays, and Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays and any Holy day in between (benefit of going to Catholic School: on any day religion class could be cancelled and you’d have to go to Mass instead!) I honored my mother and my father (as far as I knew) and I still wasn’t sure about that adultery thing except that it was something that adults did. I was pretty sure I had probably stolen something. I couldn’t think of what, or when, but I was pretty sure I had.
“What if we only have two?” I asked. Mrs. Vote just kind of stared at me for a minute. I think she might have rung up an extra one in that moment while she was still talking and writing on the board, but interrupting your teacher wasn’t on her list.
“If you can only think of two, that’s fine, but try to have three.”
I stuck with my two. My first confession was still 3 days away, so I had time to add on number three.
***
The big day came and I was all dressed up in my school clothes and a tie. Since I wore navy pants and a long sleaved white shirt every day to school, getting dressed up was just putting on a tie or borrowing a suit that was too big. I was glad that for my first confession I just had to add the tie.
Our whole class went in and sat in the front few pews of the church. The priest said some stuff, and our parents looked across the aisle at all of us sitting together, proud as can be of their little confessors.
In a Catholic church, there is a stage area in the front. Not a stage like in a protestant church covered with electrical cables and theatrical lights and subwoofers propped up on Bibles, but a sacred stage. It’s an area of foreboding, and area that is very clean and clear and open and forbidden to civilians. You have to cross yourself whenever you pass the center line, so you learn to make your trips up there all on one side. I was an altar boy, so I had been all over on the sacred stage, except behind the altar. Only the priest went up there.
In front of the altar were two chairs, and after the priest said some things, he went and sat down in one of them, and then stared at all of us. There we were, expected, called, if you will, to come up and sit IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STAGE AND CONFESS OUR SINS! At least there was no microphone, but what about the cool closets on the side of the church?! What about the cool screen that you could go to and the priest wouldn’t know it was you confessing that you lied to your mother! Would he come next Tuesday and talk all about how we shouldn’t lie to our mothers like little Danny Sullivan did!?
One by one all of my friends went up and sat and talked and then came back down and prayed. They all seemed to come away with a big grin on their face, so it didn’t seem like such a bad thing. I went on up, hoping that no one else would go up at the same time and draw a lot of attention to me. It was bad enough having all of my friends sitting there watching, but their parents too! And my MOM! Would she hear? Would Father Foster tell her what I said?!
There was no turning back now, I crossed my self and stepped onto the holy stage. I went up and was greeted warmly and it was all over in about 15 seconds. After I was done, Fr. Foster told me to go say 10 ‘Our Fathers’ and 10 ‘Hail Marys’ and to not do it again. As I stood to walk off, he stopped me and said, “hold on,” was that not enough!? Did he just peer into my soul and notice one that I forgot?!
“Here you go, good job” he said, and handed me a Clark bar.
A Clark bar. Clark Bar
The crunchy peanut butter wrapped in chocolate taste of forgiveness was all mine. “Good job.”
I went smiling back to my seat and stared at my Clark bar for a few seconds before remembering the prayers I had to say.

***

That story was buzzing in my head the whole time I was reading “Churched.” I must say, if Matthew Turner wrote that out, it would be funnier than my version. (his website is www.matthewpaulturner.com )Turner does a very good job of telling stories in a way that you can definitely see what is WRONG about this story, but he doesn’t spoon feed you about what the right way should be.
Since a lot of the story happened when he was in 2nd ish grade, the book made me think a lot about how I’m raising my own sons. Do I mindlessly follow rules that when I really think them through, contradict the teachings of Jesus? Am I living a life-example that is different than the things I want my kids to learn about Jesus? I’m not sure, but Turner’s book has subtly made me consider those things, and consider how I steer my kids down their path towards God.
If you grew up in any church, Catholic or Protestant, this book is going to bring back some funny-only-in-retrospect memories. And if you didn’t grow up this way, you’d better read this book to make sure you aren’t awash in cultural legalism and calling it Christianity rather than living out the life of Jesus that has been resurrected into you.
So here’s the deal: I probably wouldn’t have picked this book up and read it if somebody didn’t ask me to, but I’m really glad that I did read it. I usually read stuff that’s a lot more complicated (on the surface anyway) and makes me angrier, so this was really refreshing. I wish all of my Christian books made my laugh till I had tears in my eyes. So I’m giving away a copy of this book. You can try to win one or go buy one, whichever.
So how should we do the contest? Should we do the comment thing and then I draw out a name? Or do some email thing? Or an in-person contest?
Oooh, wait wait wait! We’ll do an essay contest, yeah, that’s fun.
Write in the comments a short and weird church thing that happened to you growing up. I’ll read them to my wife, without saying your name, and the winner gets the book! That will be fun. No over-shares though, people, this is a public blog!
I’ll even give you a week to do it. You have until October 21 at Midnight.
The runner up will get a Clark bar.
Good job.

Bookstore, Family Life, Short Quotes books, Catholic, church, stories, youth

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