IN THEIR ENTHUSIASM to tell a story about someone else, kids sometimes say impolite things that make their parents cringe. It takes children a while to learn the filters that adults take for granted (assuming, of course, that they have any themselves). So parents try to teach their children some rules of etiquette. They teach them what’s appropriate to say and what isn’t, what they can say to whom and under what circumstances.

In the 1942 Disney classic Bambi, for example, Bambi’s little rabbit pal Thumper runs his mouth in a way that earns his mother’s disapproval. “Thumper!” she scolds immediately. “What did your father tell you this morning?” A chastened Thumper dutifully repeats the lesson in a timid little voice: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” Many of us have internalized similar lessons from our parents. In fact, it sometimes seems as if we’ve joined the Church of Thumper, in which Christian faithfulness is measured by niceness, particularly in what we say. (Of course, even if we’re nice to each other’s faces, smiling and saying all the right things, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we won’t gossip behind each other’s backs.)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that Christians should scatter the rules of etiquette to the wind and say whatever they want in the name of truth. There’s already plenty of self-righteous carping to go around, and it’s not helping the cause of Christ and his church. So to borrow from the apostle Paul’s wise counsel, yes, we need to speak the truth — but learn to do so in love (Eph 4:15). And like it or not, sometimes the truth isn’t “nice.” Saying it out loud may violate one or more rules of politeness.

It’s not polite, for example, for the apostle Paul to say “Imitate me” — not once, but twice! — in his letter to the Corinthians. Taken out of context, it sounds egotistical. But he says this in love, knowing that the Corinthians have a view of Christian leadership that’s been distorted by spiritual pride. They need to learn humility instead. So Paul invites them to imitate him, but only after he’s spelled out the inconvenient truth: his leadership, and that of Apollos, consists of a life of weakness, suffering, and humble service.

Imitate that.

It’s not polite for the apostle John to call the people who left his community “antichrists” and “children of the devil.” That’s as direct and over-the-top as it gets. But this too is said in love, particularly for the people who are still with him. Remember, we have no access whatsoever to what John may have said to the secessionists directly. For all we know, he was a paragon of loving patience with them as he tried to explain their error, all to no avail. He then writes 1 John out of love for his remaining brothers and sisters, knowing that they have been left confused by the conflict and are in need of some fatherly reassurance. He speaks the hard truth about the secessionists so that his readers will know that they have believed and stood up for the truth about Jesus.

And it’s not polite for John to call out the inhospitable and power-hungry behavior of Diotrephes in such stark terms in his letter to Gaius. Isn’t John supposed to be the apostle of love? Is he being a hypocrite, preaching about the love of God and the virtue of hospitality out of one side of his mouth and then ranting about Diotrephes out of the other? What would his mother say?

It’s good and right for us to be cautious and to teach our children accordingly. Even if John can say such things with a clear conscience and without self-serving motives, we shouldn’t assume that we can do the same. Imitating Paul doesn’t mean we have license to call other people foolish just because Paul did so with the Galatians. Likewise, imitating Jesus doesn’t mean we get to accuse our enemies of being the “brood of vipers” — which, in today’s parlance, might be equivalent to saying, “Your mama was a snake.” Don’t do it. I promise it won’t go well.

So niceness isn’t necessarily a bad place to start. But love is not the same as niceness. And the truth can hurt. Some things that we would rather avoid saying need to be said, for the sake of the person who needs to hear it, for the sake of the church, for the sake of the gospel. We need to receive John’s words humbly, knowing that the harsh spotlight he shines on Diotrephes might also reveal something about our own character and leadership, our own self-serving uses of power.

It may not be polite, but if it’s the truth, we need to hear it. Let us therefore learn to speak the truth in love so that others might hear it. Let us listen to the truth in humility, so that we might learn and grow from it. And let us do it all, as John would say, for the sake of the Name.