It’s easy to be unkindly honest and equally so to be dishonestly kind. Doing both at once is hard. It’s hardest when it matters most.

When everyone is behaving, honesty and kindness get along fine. But everyone sins, makes stupid decisions, and does destructive things from time to time. Our closest friends, church members, children, and spouses will need our help when they do. The more important the relationship, the more important it is to get this right.

Truth without kindness rarely gets heard. It provokes people to defensiveness, justifications, excuses, anything to protect themselves from the sting of shame. The gift gets rejected and often along with the person giving it. Kindness without truth fails in the other direction. It enables, encourages, and emboldens them to walk faster down their present path toward greater folly and misery.

We tend to treat honesty and kindness as two goods to balance, a little more of one here and a little less of the other there. It’s better to think of them as body and soul: distinct, yet united. Unkind honesty usually isn’t fully honest. It leaves out the truth about our own sin and the truth about their worth. Dishonest kindness isn’t really kind. It smiles, cheers, and waves while people we love walk toward misery. Truth and kindness, rightly understood, are inseparably united. That’s why Paul doesn’t tell us to balance truth and love. He tells us to speak “the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). Honesty without kindness is a corpse. Kindness without honesty is a ghost.

If we get that right, we’ve a fighting chance to help the people we love the most.

But how?

Before You Speak the Hard Truth

Before you say a word, ask yourself four questions.

Is this actually sin?

Not everything that bothers you is wrong. People are allowed to be awkward and no one is obliged to obey your preferences or tiptoe around your pet peeves. If it rises to the level of sin or destructive folly, you’d better have verses. If it merely annoys you, let them be weirdos in peace.

Have I checked my perspective?

If you’re not sure, ask. Sometimes we’re too close to a person or situation to see it clearly. A wise, godly friend can help you tell a real problem from a personal irritation. Just guard against gossip. Ask one or two people, not five. Honor the person you’re asking about and share only what’s needed. Your goal isn’t to vent. It’s to get clarity on something you’re willing to bring to them directly.

Why do I want to say this?

James says our fights come from passions at war within us (James 4:1). So ask: if this is my strategy, what’s my desire? Do I want to embarrass them, shame them, or make them pay? Or do I want their good? The first is love of self dressed up as honesty. The second is love.

Am I calm enough to be heard?

It’s possible to see their sin clearly, truly want their good, and still not be ready to talk. If your emotions are raging within, your attitude, tone, and words will be too loud for them to hear the truth you’re offering. Wait. Pray. Take a walk. A right motive at the wrong moment still goes wrong.

When You Speak the Hard Truth

1. Go Privately and Go First

When we see sin, our impulse is to tell everyone except that person. Jesus offers the exact opposite counsel: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone” (Matt. 18:15). In other words, he should hear it from you before he hears about it from anyone else. Talk to him, not about him.

2. Use the Mirror Before the Magnifying Glass

Again, in our flesh, we tend to examine other people’s sins with a magnifying glass and give our own sins a quick glance in the mirror, if at all. And, again, Jesus reverses the order: “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matt. 7:5). Notice, Jesus doesn’t forbid removing specks from the eyes of others, but actually wants it. What He knows, however, is that our ability to see and help our friends with their sin is hampered if we haven’t reckoned with our own. Logs don’t sharpen our vision.

There are two benefits from this. One, it will give you compassion for them in difficult times. As one pastor put it, loving difficult people gets easier when you remember you’re a difficult person to love too. Two, it will likely make them more receptive. If your friends know you as someone who owns and confesses your sins, they’ll likely be more open when you bring up theirs.

3. Gather Before You Give

God is omniscient. You are not. Before you jump to conclusions, do all you can to get more information and understanding. “If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame” (Proverbs 18:13). Ask before you tell. What happened? What were you thinking? How are you doing? Learning more may change everything. At the very least, it may change your tone. Either way, questions prove you came to understand and not merely to condemn. “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out” (Proverbs 20:5). It’ll likely help to draw it out.

4. Name the Behavior, Not Their Identity

Behaviors are about what someone does. Identity is about who someone is. Folks are much more open to considering errors they’ve made, but things get personal when you offer verdicts about their character. Being told, “You lied to me about where you were on Friday,” hits a whole lot different than, “Why are you such a liar?” The first is an observation. The second a verdict. Nathan’s story let David condemn the deed before he knew it was his own (2 Samuel 12:5–7). Describing behavior helps the person see it more clearly without their defenses clouding their vision.

5. Be Gentle

Jerks are unpersuasive. Mean people are easy to oppose. But “a soft tongue will break a bone” (Proverbs 25:15). Gentle words are much more powerful than hard ones. Take a seat. Keep your voice down. Control your face and your gestures. Leave no room for biting remarks, sarcasm, condescension that’ll weaken trust. Let your presence, tone, body language, and volume communicate love.

6. Aim at Restoration

Jesus’ instructions for what to do when a brother sins against you in the church are well known, but the reason for them is often missed. Why confront a brother with his sin? Why bring other witnesses? Not to belittle, shame, or punish him, but to gain him back. “If he listens to you, you have gained your brother” (Matt. 18:15). Similarly, the purpose of having hard conversations is rescue: the person from sin’s folly and the relationship from its strain. If you want to hurt their feelings, you shouldn’t have the talk. If you want to protect their joy and life, call them up.

7. Trust God to Work

It’s helpful to prepare yourself for the possibility that they may reject what you say. If they’re a fellow believer and they do, walk through the exact steps Jesus gives in Matthew 18:15–20. They may still reject it all. It happens. So before, during, and after hard conversations, remind yourself, “I can control my motives, words, and tone, but I cannot touch their heart; that’s God’s work.” Do your part and leave God the rest.

8. Stay After You Speak

Don’t let a hard conversation be the last conversation. A faithful friend sticks around after the hard conversation. If you need to rebuke someone, don’t ghost them afterward or you’ll confirm their fear that your love was conditional: they didn’t perform, so they’ve been cut from the roster of your friendships. Text them later. Invite them to dinner. Ask how they’re doing next week. Your truth may wound them, but your ongoing presence will help heal them.

True Love Speaks

Sometimes we think love should keep us from speaking hard words, but the opposite is true. True love for others compels us to speak good, hard words to them when needed. In fact, when we choose to stay silent about others’ sin, it reveals not the presence of love, but its absence. As Bonhoeffer wrote in Life Together, “Nothing can be more cruel than the tenderness that consigns another to his sin.”

Jesus never had to choose between kindness and hard words. John says He came “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). He told the woman at the well everything she had ever done and offered her living water in the same conversation (John 4:10, 16–18). He went further than any of us ever will. At the cross, the hardest truth about us and the greatest kindness toward us met in one place. God didn’t pretend our sin was fine and He didn’t leave us in it. He told the truth about it and paid for it Himself.

That’s what frees us to speak. Every Christian has already heard the hardest word about themselves and been loved through it. We don’t need to win because we’ve already been forgiven. We can’t stay silent because we’ve seen what love does with sin and are called to extend that love to others. Love doesn’t ignore sin, but deals with it. In Christ, honesty and kindness were never a corpse or a ghost, but flesh and blood.

Speaking hard words in love is never easy, is often uncomfortable, and always requires wisdom. Yet true love enters that discomfort and difficulty hoping to set a brother’s feet on solid ground.

Your enemies will kiss you in your folly, but your true friends are those willing to wound you in love (Proverbs 27:6).

Seek those friends. Be that friend.