Maturity through Speaking

“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…”

(Eph 4:15, ESV)

The typical emphasis in this verse is on the word, ‘love’.  “When you’re going to tell someone the cold, hard facts you better tell them in love, otherwise they’re just not going to hear you.”  Sure, this is true.  But learning this verse in context, it seems that Paul is making a much more significant point.

The ‘rather’ with which this verse begins sets itself up in contrast to the concept of the previous verse: that of being children tossed to and fro by every wave.  Either we live as anchor-less children, or we grow to mature manhood (vs 12) in the likeness of Christ.  We start as vulnerable children.  Our calling is to look like Christ.  The way to grow up is to speak the truth in love.

Suddenly this “speaking the truth in love” is no longer just a strategy for making hard-headed people hear me.  Properly understood, the aim of speaking the truth in love isn’t so much to transform other people as it is to transform me.

I can see that.  Somehow the commitment of verbalizing a truth does something inside me.  The very act of speaking a truth makes me believe it more.  The more I believe a truth, the more my life lines up with it and the more I begin to look like Christ.

“We are called to be the holy temple of God,” is a truth emphasized in the first half of the book of Ephesians.  If I am to free the full potency of this fact in my life and in the lives of those around me, there is no better way than to talk about it lovingly.  Keeping this truth as a conversation topic does two things:  first it re-aligns my internal value system; secondly it leads me to think of its implications and practical ways to live it out.  Then these two transformations play off each other:  since I internally start to value this ‘holy temple calling’, I actually have the desire to start living out these implications.

There is yet another way in which speaking the truth in love grows me up to be like Christ.  It is the very act of practicing this truth and love filled speech that matures me.  The best way to be a better piano player?  Play the piano.  The best way to be a better pray-er?  Practice praying.  The best way to be like Christ in speech?  Speak like Christ.  Practice is never easy.  It is an unglamorous path filled with failed attempts.  But it really is the only way; no short-cuts to personal perfection.

So, what areas of my life need transformation?  What relationships have I that can use more Kingdom presence?  First, let me seek out the appropriate Biblical truth that longs to flourish in that life situation.  Then, let me practice speaking it lovingly and let the transformation begin with me.