We should be careful to be Biblical, to be accurate, factual, on-target, articulate, proportionate, and appropriately concerned for showing that love which has God and His truth first in affection, and man a close second — and which remembers that truth and love are not mutually exclusive.

We should not be careful to sell out God’s dignity, honor and truth and the health and wellbeing of His church by avoiding offending anybody, making our false priority to avoid trouble, to avoid disagreement, to blunt the edges of the Gospel or of truth, to protect the credibility of false teachers and enable their continued harming of souls, to avoid being unpopular and ill-thought-of by those among whom the truth is ill-thought-of, to avoid all criticism, to protect our reputation and popularity among the elite.

We should care about doing our best to see God’s truth triumph decisively over error — first in our own lives, then in our churches — more than we care about how we ourselves are perceived.

– Dan Phillips