Telling the Truth and its Impact in Friendships Essay -- Christianity,

An article by John Piper titled â€Å"Truth & Love† offers up a compelling relation between how the world defines and handles education and relationships to what the bible has to say about it. Piper says, â€Å"I find in place of the words, "education" and "relationship," the words, "truth" and "love."† (Piper, 2011) The way those two are entirely parallel can teach people an enormous amount about how to go about having meaningful relationships. If education is truth, and relationship is love, then they are connected. To love someone is to have a relationship with them, to tell someone the truth is to educate them about something. Therefore, how cruel is it to withhold knowledge, or worse yet, teach them an altered education. To have one without the other is like taking away a vital working part of a machine, it simply wont work like it was created to. Friendships wont work like they were designed if either love or truth is absent. Just as truth supports love, Piper follows that by speaking on how love is equally as supporting to the truth. â€Å"But there is a way to speak the truth in love, and that we should seek. It is not always a soft way to speak, or Jesus would have to be accused of lack of love in dealing with some folks in the Gospels.†¨Ã¢â‚¬ ¨ But it does ask about what is the most helpful thing to say when everything is considered. Sometimes what would have been a hard word to one group is a needed act of love to another group, and not a wrong to the group addressed. But in general, love shapes truth into words and ways that are patient and gentle (2 Timothy 2:24-25).† (Piper, 2011) A general misconception that speaking truth in love must be meek and soft spoken is often what keeps people from being bold in love in their relationships. Th... ...itual-well-being/5580-education-and-relation-truth-and-love The bible. NLT Beebe, S. A., Beebe, S. J., & Redmond, M. V. (2010). Interpersonal communication, relating to others. (6th ed., pp. 288-292). *Sources up until this point were congruent with the requirements of the paper, the rest are extras. Ekman, P. and Friesen, W.V. â€Å"The Repertoire of Nonverbal Behavior: Categories, Origins, Usage and Coding,† Semiotica 1 (1969): 49-98 McCornack, S.A. and Levine, T.R. â€Å"When Lies Are Uncovered: Emotional and Relational Outcomes of Discovered Deception,† Communication Monographs 57 (1990): 119-38 iPerceptive. (2011). Honesty quotes. Retrieved from http://iperceptive.com/quotes/honesty_quotes.html Foundation, C. (n.d.). Pondering point: Does this make me look fat?. Retrieved from http://www.charmmdfoundation.org/PonderingPoint/PonderingPoint_RB100909.pdf