In response to hearing the Truth upheld and false doctrine and false teachers being renounced, some get upset. They will many times say, “Why don’t you just preach about love?”

Some have the notion, and it is false, that you cannot declare and defend the Truth and at the same time have and demonstrate love for others. The thinking of some is that love will never condemn anyone nor anything, let alone sin, and if one does so, he is unloving. Yet, they condemn themselves according to their own “reasoning” by saying such things.

Some are confused about what Bible “love” really is and how it is to be demonstrated. Preaching Bible “love” in no way precludes declaring of Truth, demonstrating the Truth and defending the Truth. If we are to preach “love,” and we must, what is involved?

To preach “love” is to preach the Love Of God. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9).

To preach “love” is to preach Love For God. “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment” (Matt. 22:36-38). “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). It is not enough just to declare with our lips our love for God. Our love must also be demonstrated “by” and “in” our lives. Therefore, we will: 1) Spend time in prayer (Col. 4:2); 2) Search and study God’s Word (John 5:39; 2 Tim. 2:15); 3) Seek spiritual things first (Matt. 6:33); 4) Serve the Lord in obeying His Word (John 14:15) and 5) State and Show our love for others (1 John 4:21).

To preach “love” is to preach Love For God’s Word. “O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psa. 119:97). If we have a love for God’s Word, then that will be demonstrated in what we proclaim and practice. A love for God’s Word means we will: 1) “Preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:2); 2) “Speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15); 3) Not preach a perverted Gospel (Gal. 1:6-9); 4) “Rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15) and 5) Not “wrest” the Scriptures (2 Peter 3:16).

To preach “love” is to preach Love For Those Who Are Godly And Those Who Are Godless. We are to love all mankind including our enemies (Matt. 22:39; 5:43-44). “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:20-21). We are to “love one another with a pure heart fervently” (1 Peter 1:23).

Love for others means we will do what we can to help physically and spiritually (Gal. 6:1-2, 10; 1 John 3:17; James 5:19-20; Jude 23). Proclaiming the Truth to others, praying for others, persuading people to give up their sins and to promptly obey the Gospel is demonstrating the proper kind of love for others. We cannot say that we are preaching “love” and that we genuinely love others when we withhold the saving Gospel from them and refuse to “reprove, rebuke and exhort” (2 Tim. 4:2).

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