Grace and truth
"I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel."1 Corinthians 4:14-15
Paul had earned the right to be the authority in the Corinthian church, because he had brought them to faith in Christ and founded the church on the gospel. We know the gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ – His virgin birth, His sinless life, His death on the Cross, His resurrection, and His ascension to Heaven. It has within it the balance of grace and truth. Without that balance, the gospel becomes invalid.
Grace alone leads to license, the attitude that we can do anything we want because we’re under grace and God will forgive us. Truth alone is not the gospel either, because that leads to legalism. So the gospel must have the balance of grace and truth. We, too, must possess that same balance, because, like Paul, we are commissioned to share the Good News, the gospel, wherever we go.