Many would say that the greatest Christian virtue is love—and they’d be right. Paul affirms this in 1 Corinthians 13:13 (ESV): “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Quite often, 1 Corinthians 13 is viewed as this flowery and feel-good piece of literature that Paul sandwiches in the middle of two frameworks for spiritual gift operation. But is this really the case?

I recently came across an article from Bill Mounce (a New Testament scholar and Founder/President of BiblicalTraining.com), in which he argues that this chapter is more of an indictment against a church that was spiritually gifted yet completely off the rails. In this article, he states, “I can hear Paul punctuate his words… You think you are so important, but all the gifts you treasure will one day be gone, and you will be left with nothing because you have neither faith, hope, nor love.”

So 1 Corinthians 13 isn’t feel-good, it’s a rebuke to a church rich in gifts but poor in love. This highlighted something significant to me. We can become so focused on one aspect of God’s character—the very character we’re called to reflect as followers of Christ—that we fail to see the danger of imbalance. The church of Corinth was so focused on excelling in spiritual giftings that they were completely blind to the fact that love was not at the centre of it all.

If Paul wrote to today’s Western church, what imbalance would he address? If you were to ask me, at the top of that list would be a calling out of the exultation of compassion above truth.

We’ve become so blinded by cultural pressure to affirm everyone’s individuality that we’ve sacrificed truth on the altar of approval. And look, I get it, I want people to feel loved and cared for in my presence and in the overall culture of the church. That being said, if I lose touch with the truth in which the love of God is rooted, I run the risk of this well-intentioned desire doing more harm than good. There’s no greater example of this than in the realm of ministry that I am focused on: that of Gospel-centred sexuality and identity.

I vividly remember one question I received showing this disconnection between love and truth.  At a talk on the Gospel and gender identity a few years back, I explained from Luke 9 that following Christ means denying self. At the later Q&A time, a man stood up and said, “Yes, Jesus calls people to deny themselves, but we just need to love them.” This is love un-hitched from truth.  G.K. Chesterton spoke years ago about this very issue: “The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone”. Here’s what we need to remember: the Scriptures’ claim of authority is not only rooted in the historical integrity of the text, but also in the Person who inspired it and Whom it reveals. The truth, instruction, prohibitions, and corrections of Scripture are not separate from Christ Himself. To say it simply, truth and love are not mutually exclusive.

Paul even makes this clear in that famous chapter on love. In verse 6, he writes that love, “… does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”  Real love as described in the Bible cannot be separated from truth! Love truly wishes the good of another and thus boldly declares the truth of God’s design and His instruction, which is a direct expression of His good character. Truth provides the setting of reality in which God’s great love can be experienced and expressed accurately.

Friends, we can’t love people more than God. If we separate love from truth in the name of compassion, that compassion will lose any power to live in the freedom that Christ has purposed for us in His victory on the Cross. When compassion is unanchored from the bedrock of transcendent truth, society drifts into the toxic, unforgiving waters of moral relativism where the currents never relent.

If we are going to be effective in our ambassadorial work as Christ followers, we cannot lose our grasp on the tension of grace and truth. We have to see that the truth of God’s design doesn’t crush compassion; rather, it provides the integrity of its value. Within this tension—of grace and truth, mercy and righteousness—dwells the beauty of Christ’s character (John 1:14; Psalm 85:10).