We are in Christ in much the same way that we are in our earthly family. By human birth, we are inexorably made children of our parents for life. We are members of their family. We are in their family.

The idea of speaking the truth in love has been taken out of context by many and used as a pretext for a punitive approach to “helping” those who have stumbled. Under the guise of “tough love” many have been harmed and deeply hurt by Christians who misread this verse to be saying that we are to do whatever it takes to correct the faults of others, no matter the cost.

What we are discovering here is that Love is the sinew, or the fastener, or the uniting bond that ties all these godly virtues together and this results in unity of the Spirit, or as Paul will frame it in Ephesians 4:13 “the unity of the faith.”

There’s a lot of noise out there. There’s teaching that leaves us confused, even fearful. There’s teaching that seems to call us to divide ourselves from those who understand things differently. This doesn’t sit well with the Spirit within us.