Members
Speak the Truth

This verse is from Paul in his letter to the church in Ephesus. It’s the first verse in a long section of specific instructions to members of the church, how they should treat one another and how they should conduct themselves as Christians.

The section prior to this verse explained some very important principles about church life. It compared the church to a physical body, with Christ as the head, and with the church members being the members of the body. This means that church members are strongly connected to each other, and that everyone is equally important (see also 1 Corinthians 12:12-27).

On which particular aspect of our church/body life does Paul zoom in here? What is the first thing he mentions when starting to give specific instructions to church members? He focuses on our words. No lying. But speaking truth instead. 

The word for lying is ‘pseudos’, from which we indeed get our pseudo in English. It means a falsehood, an untruth, a lie. There are few things as damaging for relationships between people as lies. If we lie to someone else, and they believe us, they will make assumptions and come to conclusions that are wrong. And then they may take actions based upon false information, and those actions could do serious damage.

To demonstrate this, let’s stick to the body analogy. Our nervous system is supposed to give information to our brains, which will take action based on that information. Suppose that for some reason, our hand is touching fire. And suppose that the nerves are not warning the brain but instead tell the brain that this is a very pleasant experience. The brain would keep the hand in the fire and it would get burned. Irreparable damage. This same damage occurs when people within the church tell lies. So lying is bad, really truly bad.

The imperative in this sentence however is not ‘do not lie’ but ‘speak the truth’. So its even more important to speak the truth to eachother. The Greek words for speaking truth are ‘laleo aletheia’ and they literally mean to talk/speak truth/reality/facts. Sticking again to the hand in the fire analogy; if the nerves do not lie, but also don’t speak truth, the brain would still not send signals to remove the hand and it would still burn. The only way to avoid damage to the hand is to actually send a signal that something is seriously wrong, that the temperature around the hand is far too high for comfort, so that they brain can send an immediate signal to the arm in order to remove the hand from the fire.

The application is clear. Within our churches, we have to make sure that we do not lie, but instead speak truth. The reason Paul gives is that we are members of each other, we are equal parts of the same body, and hence our lives are connected. If one suffers, we all suffer. If one goes astray due to lies, we all hurt. So it is of vital importance to speak facts and truth to each other. This does not mean that we tell everything to everybody. Discretion is still required. The hand that is in the fire is not sending signals to all other parts and the brain is not involving everything in the body in the response. Only those parts that need to know are involved, and that is probably a good model for our churches as well.

Godspeed!