God’s Truth and Love Are Inseparable

I most commonly hear truth and love treated as binary, opposites, or ends of a spectrum. Pastors speak of our tendency to choose one or the other and exhort us to find balance, to hold them in tension. But I'm not satisfied with this. I'm on a quest for clarity.

Balance and the Center of Biblical Tension

My seminary president, Robertson McQuilkin, drilled into me a profound maxim: โ€œIt seems easier to go to a consistent extreme than to stay at the center of biblical tension.โ€ More recently, this same concept was reiterated by my Bible study teacher, JoAnn Hummel: โ€œYou and others will benefit as you โ€œhold the ropeโ€ of tension in the Scriptures.โ€ The prophet Isaiah offers us many opportunities to put this guiding principle into practice since his writing contains much tension.