Ephesians 4:15: this edition does not say “speaking the truth in love”
15Instead, acting according to truth in charity, we should increase in everything, in him who is the head, Christ himself.
The verse this page is about.
Short answer
Ephesians 4:15 calls for conduct shaped by truth and carried out in charity, so that the community grows in everything into Christ, its head. Many readers arrive expecting a phrase about speech. This edition has none: the demand is about conduct, and the stated purpose is shared maturity rather than winning an exchange.
- Written by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 2 min read
The line has become a preface for hard conversations. Someone needs to say something unpleasant, opens with a claim to be speaking truth in love, and proceeds. The preface works as a permit: it converts harshness into obedience.
It is worth checking against what this page publishes. In this edition there is no instruction to say anything. The instruction is to act in accordance with truth, which is far wider than a conversation — and far more demanding, because it does not end when the other person leaves the room.
Where this verse appears
The chapter describes gifts distributed across the community for a single purpose: equipping people for service and building up the body, until everyone arrives at unity of faith and at maturity.
The verse immediately before describes the opposite condition: little children shaken by whatever doctrinal wind happens to be blowing, exposed to people who deceive on purpose. Today’s verse opens with a turn — instead of that, this.
What it says
Three parts are locked together. Truth is the orientation, charity is the manner, and growth is the outcome. Remove any one and the structure collapses: truth without charity is not what the text asks for, and charity without truth is not either.
The wording deserves attention precisely because it is unfamiliar. Where the well-known English phrasing puts a verb of speech at the centre, this edition puts a verb of doing. That single difference removes the most common use of the verse, which is to justify saying something painful. Acting truthfully cannot be discharged in one conversation.
The direction of growth is also easy to lose. It is not the other person who must grow because of your candour — it is the whole that grows toward the head. The subject is plural and the destination is Christ, not the resolution of one particular disagreement.
What to do with it today
Before your next difficult conversation, run a test: do you want the other person to grow, or do you want to be right? The question is simple and almost always exposes something. Only the first intention has this verse behind it.
And notice that acting according to truth costs you more than it costs the listener. It asks for consistency between what you say and how you live — which is, incidentally, why some hard conversations should never have happened in that form.
What the passages say
2with all humility and meekness, with patience, supporting one another in charity.
The chapter opened with the tone already set: humility, meekness, patience, holding each other up in charity. That is the frame today’s verse belongs inside.
14So may we then no longer be little children, disturbed and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the wickedness of men, and by the craftiness which deceives unto error.
The immediate contrast. The danger named is childish instability in the face of any new teaching, not an excess of gentleness — which already suggests the next sentence is not asking anyone to be harsher.
A prayer to carry with you
Lord, keep me from using truth as a weapon. When I have something hard to say, let it be for building and not for winning. And let my life hold up what my mouth claims. Amen.