Just Preach The Truth?

Christians, brothers and sisters in Christ, why don’t we just preach the truth? Why must we always teach against doctrines and sinful practices?

This question, asked with increasing frequency in our therapeutic age, sounds humble. It sounds charitable. It sounds like wisdom. But is it truly biblical and loving?

Let’s take a look at what the apostle Paul says against the Ebionites, how John combats Gnosticism, how our Lord rebuked the Pharisees. Christianity isn’t a religion where we worship our God and others have a divine right to raise their false deities to the elevation of the Christ. Whoever is not with the Lord is against Him. He is not one among many—He is the only true and living God, and there is no one beside Him. We are called to spiritual warfare, not to passive coexistence with deadly error.

The False Dichotomy Exposed

The modern evangelical ethos insists: “Just preach Christ; don’t attack error. Be positive, not negative. Emphasize what we’re for, not what we’re against.”

This sounds noble until we open the Bible.

The biblical reality is this: Christ and the apostles preached truth by opposing lies. They did not merely present truth and allow error to stand unchallenged. They named it. They refuted it. They warned against it with urgency and precision.

To separate preaching Christ from opposing error is to create a dichotomy foreign to Scripture itself. You cannot preach the true Christ without distinguishing Him from false Christs. You cannot proclaim the true Gospel message without exposing false gospels. The apostle Paul makes this explicit: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” -Galatians 1:8

Far from a call to apathy or neutrality, that is a declaration of war against soul-destroying lies.

Apostolic Precedent: They Named and Opposed Error

Paul Against Judaizing Error

The apostle Paul did not merely preach justification by faith as a way—he actively combated the Judaizers who insisted on circumcision and law-keeping as an add-on for salvation. In Galatians, he writes with zeal: “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:” -Galatians 1:6

He calls the Judaizers dogs and evil workers in Philippians 3:2. He warns the Galatians that if they accept circumcision as necessary for salvation, “Christ shall profit you nothing” -Galatians 5:2, and “Christ is become of no effect unto you” -Galatians 5:4. This is the proclamation of truth—truth declared by exposing the specific lies that threatened the churches.

John Against Gnosticism

The apostle John faced a different threat: Gnostic teachers who denied the incarnation, claiming that Christ only seemed to have a physical body. John does not respond with vague generalities about love and unity. He responds with doctrinal precision and fervent discipline:

“For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” And “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.” -2 John:7, 10-11

John names the error. He identifies the teachers. He demands separation. This is not performative moral posturing—this is pastoral protection of the flock.

Christ Against the Pharisees

Our Lord Himself provides the ultimate model. He did not simply preach the kingdom and leave the Pharisees undisputed. He confronted them publicly, repeatedly, and with devastating specificity:

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men:… for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.… Ye fools and blind:…. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” -Matthew 23:13,15,16,33.

In John 8, Jesus tells the religious leaders of His day, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.” -John 8:44

This is the Prince of Peace and He publicly, forcefully, specifically opposed theological error and spiritual hypocrisy because silence in the face of lies is not love—it is betrayal.

The Exclusivity of Christ: No Neutrality, No Pluralism

Christianity is not a pluralistic religion. Christ is not one path among many, one truth among competing truths, one lord among rival deities. He Himself declares: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” -John 14:6

There is no neutral ground. Jesus makes this clear: “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” -Matthew 12:30

The culture tells us that all sincere religious devotion leads to the same God, that we must respect all faith claims equally, that dogmatic exclusivity is arrogance. But this is precisely the kind of lie the apostles spent their lives opposing. Peter proclaimed before the Sanhedrin: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” -Acts 4:12

To remain silent about false ways, false gospels, and false teachers does not biblically seem to be humility—it seems to actually demonstrate cowardice. It is not love—it is abandonment. When eternal souls hang in the balance, ambiguity is cruelty.

Spiritual Warfare: The Battleground of Truth

This is not a call to culture-war rage. It is not permission for personal animosity or ungodly harshness. It is not license to attack people rather than ideas. We should give a defense for the faith with “meekness and fear” -1 Peter 3:15.

But it is a call to active resistance against the lies that destroy souls of those whom we are commanded to love and proclaim the Gospel to.

There are no non-essential or secondary issues when Scripture tells us that “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven:..” -Matthew 5:19.

Conclusion: Silence Is Not Love

We live in an age that mistakes silence for kindness, confrontation for hatred, and doctrinal precision for divisiveness. But the testimony of Scripture is clear:

Silence is not love. When your brother believes a lie that will destroy him, to withhold correction is not charity—it is denial of truth masquerading as tolerance.

Truth must be contended for. Jude commands us: “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” -Jude 3

Contend. Not quietly affirm. Not present as best option. Contend. Fight for. Defend. Oppose what contradicts it.

Brothers and sisters, let us preach Christ—the whole Christ, the true Christ, the Christ who is the only name under heaven by which we must be saved. And let us, like the apostles before us, preach Him by exposing every lie that would obscure His glory, distort His Gospel, or lead precious souls into eternal darkness.

The world will call it arrogance. The culture will call it intolerance. And probably much of nominal Christianity will call it unloving.

But “We ought to obey God rather than men.” -Acts 5:29. And before the Throne of God, we would rather be accused of too much zeal for truth than too much tolerance for lies.

“For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10).

May the Lord give us the courage to speak His truth, name the errors that oppose it, and trust in Him alone for all things.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​