Love the Truth and Peace: Three Categories of Religious Indifference

The prophet Zechariah's closing exhortation—"Therefore love the truth and peace"—carries particular weight as nearly his final message to Israel. This admonition addressed the spiritual lethargy of post-exilic Judah and remains urgently applicable to baptized Christians today.

Exell identifies three categories of those who fail to "love the truth." First are those with no care for religious truth whatsoever—those who treat inquiry into spiritual condition as optional rather than imperative, contrary to both natural piety and common sense. Second are those who mistake sincerity for substance, believing one faith as valid as another. These persons, Exell warns, "strike at the very foundations of all religious truth." Third are those who intellectually acknowledge truth but fail to engage their hearts and minds deeply—settling for shallow, imperfect comprehension of "the greatest and most concerning of all subjects."

Yet Exell reclaims the term "bigotry" itself, distinguishing a noble species: steadfast adherence to God's Word in faith and obedience to His will, however revealed. This firm conviction honors Elohim's aletheia (ἀλήθεια—truth) as immovable foundation. Love, when unperverted and refined by the Holy Spirit's energies, becomes "the fulfilling of the law, the sum of religion, and our assimilation to the God of love." Truth without love remains cold; love without truth becomes deception.