Love doesn't mean never disapproving anybody's conduct

The love of the Bible does not consist in never disapproving anybody's conduct. Here is another very common delusion! Thousands pride themselves on never condemning others, or saying they are wrong, whatever they may do. They convert the precept of our Lord, "Do not judge," into an excuse for having no unfavorable opinion at all of anybody. They pervert His prohibition of rash and censorious judgments into a prohibition of all judgment whatsoever. Your neighbor may be a drunkard, a liar, a violent man. Never mind! "It is not love," they tell you, "to pronounce him, wrong." You are to believe that he has a good heart at the bottom! This idea of love is, unhappily, a very common one. It is full of mischief. To throw a veil over sin, and to refuse to call things by their right names—to talk of "hearts" being good, when "lives" are flatly wrong—to shut our eyes against wickedness, and excuse their immorality—this is not Scriptural love.

—J.C. Ryle. Practical Religion (Kindle Locations 2199-2205). Kindle Edition.


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