The Gospel According to Peanut Butter & Jelly

“Truth without love is not truth. Love without truth is not love.” – Brandon Robinson

The Gospel message is a mixture of 100% truth and 100% love. One without the other makes it a false Gospel.

First, you must love someone enough to tell them the truth… and that truth is that they are a sinner, separated from God, and on their way to hell. However, God loved them so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die a sacrificial death in their place so that by repenting and believing on His name, their sins would be forgiven and they would be saved.

Leaving out any part of that message – their sin or God’s love – makes Jesus’s death on the cross meaningless. Linked together, however, “it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16)

It is just as wrong to share the truth of the Gospel in a harsh, judgmental, and unloving way as it is to sugarcoat it by leaving out the part about our sins separating us from a Holy God. They go together hand in glove, inextricably interwoven as equal parts of God’s divine plan of redemption.

Peanut butter and jelly… Abbott and Costello… fireworks and the 4th of July. Some things are simply better in tandem, taken in twos, and lose some of their identity when they’re on their own.

That’s the way it is with God’s truth and His love. Ne’er the two shall part!

“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ Himself, who is the head.” Ephesians 4:15 (BSB)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President