Welcome everyone to the Together on Mission Podcast, where we seek to be with and we seek to be like Jesus. We begin a conversation with Jesus every morning through scripture, through prayer and meditation. And then we continue that conversation with them throughout the rest of our day. Your hostess Travis Twynman, the pastor at the Inland Vineyard Church in Corona, California.
In this season of our podcast, you will be discussing the wonderful book of Ephesians. Good morning everyone and welcome to the Daily Together on Mission Podcast. We are, as we have been in the season, we're going through the book of Ephesians and you can turn to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 15. And we are only going to cover one verse.
In fact, I don't even think we're going to cover the entirety of verse 15. We're going to cover half of a verse in this podcast because I think we need to maybe correct a reading of this verse and understanding of this verse. And therefore a prevalent practice in the church and in relationship that has been based on, I think, of this understanding of this verse and this idea that Paul puts out in Ephesians chapter 4. So we'll get to that.
The title of the podcast this morning is Alethea. Alethea is the Greek transliteration for the word truth. Alethea is truth in Greek. Now, and of course that's the word that Paul uses in this passage in question that we're going to talk about this morning.
So if I was to say to you something like this, let me speak truth to you in love, brother. I'll give you that one again. If I said to you, let me speak truth to you in love, brother. Let me speak truth to you in love, sister.
Your sense, your reaction would probably be, oh no, what did I do wrong? Where did I fail? What did I miss? Who did I hurt?
What pattern am I caught up in that someone has a problem with? Because when we hear the phrase, speak truth in love, brother, or speak truth in love, sister, we know that we are about to get confronted with something that someone feels that we are doing wrong or something that we have missed. Or if someone was to say to you something like, hey, you need to go to that brother, sister, and you need to speak the truth to them in love. Again, we might be like, oh no, I don't want to do that.
I don't want to bring that up. I don't want to say that. That's none of my business, whatever. But when we hear the phrase, speak the truth in love.
We don't want to be on the receiving end or the giving end of that interaction or that conversation. And I'd like to make the case in the few minutes we have together that that is a misunderstanding of what Paul is saying in this passage. Let me read it for you. Chapter 4, Ephesians 4, verse 15.
Instead, speak the truth in love. And then we will grow to become, in every respect, the mature body, like him who is the head of the body, that is Christ Jesus. Paul says, and it's a command, speak the truth in love. In Greek it would be speak, Alethea, in Agape, speak the truth in love.
Well, the big question is, what is truth? When Paul uses the word Alethea in Ephesians or in his other letters, what is truth? And truth for Paul is not telling someone what they're doing wrong. It's not even telling someone what they're doing wrong in Agape love.
Truth for Paul is not telling somebody where they've missed it. That's not what Alethea means for Paul in any one of his letters. Truth for Paul, Alethea for Paul is, let me tell you who you are. Let me tell you who you have become in Christ.
Let me tell you about how special you are. Let me tell you about what your true identity is. Let me tell you what your gifting is. Let me tell you what an impact you have made in my life or the life of someone else.
That those things are what Paul means when he says truth, when he says Alethea. And if you did a word study of Alethean, Paul, that's exactly what you would find. So why when we go to Ephesians 4, verse 15, speak the truth in love to one another so that they might grow in every respect to become fully mature in Christ. Why do we turn Alethea truth into something that somebody is doing wrong or missing or has failed or isn't getting writers and doing enough of or isn't doing too much of?
Why when it comes to speaking the truth in love? Do we not want to be on the receiving or the giving into that? We want to make the case because we misunderstood it. And the problem is that there's a practice now in the Christian journey where we've taken the word Alethea and we've made it into something that it's not.
And then all of those conversations have its foundation of a misunderstanding of what Paul is saying in Ephesians 4, verse 15, Alethea in Agape is actually telling people who they are. And think about that for a minute. What would it look like to tell your son or your daughter who they are? What would it look like to go home tonight or to call your spouse today and to tell your spouse how gifted they are?
Alethea in Agape? Or to call up your mom or your dad or maybe a teacher or a pastor or a boss and let them know what an impact they have had in your life. That's Alethea in Agape or a co-worker or a sister or whatever. Alethea is reminding them of their gifting.
And after all, it's not the context. I mean, hasn't Paul just finished saying God has given some to be apostles, some prophets, some pastors, some teachers? And I don't think Paul's list is exhaustive, but he's just finished talking about grace and dishing out grace and gifting. And then he says, and speak the truth in love, speak Alethea in Agape to people, telling them who they are, telling them how special they are.
Now, does Paul elsewhere encourage us to sometimes have a hard conversation when we do need to intervene and confront someone in love? Yes, Paul does cover that. And I think he says something like when you find someone in sin, restore them gently. So Paul doesn't have a problem with the concept of when you find someone that's missing it or in sin, restore them gently.
Paul doesn't have a problem with that concept, but let's not call that speaking the truth in love. Because truth in love is reminding someone of who they are. It's telling someone who they are, encouraging them in who they are, building them up. As Paul covers elsewhere, I think in Ephesians chapter 4, something he says lets your speech build other people up.
So when we think about speaking the truth in love, that's exactly what Paul's talking about. And honestly, I mean, these two go together because the very best way to help someone who might be struggling is to remind them of who they are. That's the very best way for us to be helped or others to be helped if we're struggling in some way for someone to come to us and speak Alathea in Agape, because that's the best way to actually help people when they're struggling to remind them of who they are, because actions always flow from our identity. And speaking the truth in love is telling reminding people of their identity.
I mean, isn't that what Ephesians is? Chapters 1 through 3 is all about Alathea reminding people, reminding the Ephesian Church of their identity, and then 4 through 6 is the love, the life, the power that flows from that. And by the way, it's more fun to speak the truth in love to our sons and daughters, our spouses, our parents, our coworkers, when we know that truth is reminding people of who they are. It's so much more fun.
So I think the question that comes to my heart, my mind right now that I want to throw out to all of us is, who do you need to speak Alathea in Agape? Who needs to hear from you today? Who they are? Who needs to be reminded?
Who they are? Who needs to be reminded about their gifting? About their strength, about the impact that they've had in this life or that life, who needs you to speak Alathea? Truth to them in Agape love.
Let's do that today. Let's heed Paul's command so that we might all grow into the maturity that Christ has called us into. We'll talk soon. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Together on Mission podcast.
We truly hope that you are blessed and encouraged by it today. If you had any questions at all about the Inland Vineyard, our Ministries or our Sunday services, connect with us on our app which you can find in the Apple or Android App Store. We also have our social media pages which you can find with the tag at Inland Vineyard just to see what's going on with our community within our church events, our Revival youth group, as well as our children's ministry. Or you can always check us out on our website at inlandvignard.org.