Read the Whole Label
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” Isaiah 5:20 (ESV)
Walk down any grocery aisle and the front of the box tells a lovely story. “Made with real fruit.” “Heart smart.” “All natural.”
Then you turn the box over, read the ingredients, and discover that the story up front was written by the marketing department. A lot of us have learned to turn the box over. We’re often less careful with ideas.
That matters this month, because ideas are arriving by the truckload. Election Day is November 3, and between now and then the mailers, ads and ballot language will come dressed in the best words we have: freedom, dignity, choice, compassion.
Words like that get chosen because people already love them. The label is built to be liked. The back of the box is where you find out what’s inside.
Labels Aren’t New
God’s prophet Isaiah ran into the same thing centuries before Christ. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).
Notice what troubled him. People will always do wrong, and Isaiah knew it. What drew his woe was the relabeling, bitter sold as sweet. The next verse points to where it starts: “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:21).
Proverbs says it from the other direction: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Proverbs 14:12). Seems right is exactly what a good label does.
The tactic is as old as Eden. The serpent sold the first sin as an upgrade: “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God” (Genesis 3:5).
Paul warned the Corinthians that the pattern never retired: “Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).
Labels Today
Think about why. Nobody forges a three-dollar bill. Counterfeiters copy what’s valuable, and “compassion” is about as valuable as a word gets.
Two examples are in the news right now. In February, New York signed a Medical Aid in Dying Act that lets terminally ill adults request life-ending medication from a doctor. This November, voters in Virginia and Nevada will weigh in on abortion amendments called the Right to Reproductive Freedom and Reproductive Rights.
Both sets of names are gentle. Both deal with the end or the beginning of a human life, and Christians have always held that the person at either end carries the image of God (Genesis 1:27). David said of himself before birth, “you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:13-14).
The person in the hospice bed and the infant in the womb carry that same stamp.
Or consider the repacking of Christian teachings in secular wrappings, watering down the original meaning of the words to appeal to a more modern audience.
The Impact of Words
How we say it matters as much as what we say. Paul spoke of people living as enemies of the cross of Christ, and he said it “even with tears” (Philippians 3:18). Plain speech and a broken heart came from the same man.
Jesus gave us the picture of what real compassion looks like. The Samaritan “had compassion,” and then he bandaged the wounds, paid the innkeeper, and promised to return and cover whatever more was spent (Luke 10:33-35). Real compassion keeps company with a person to the end and picks up the bill.
That’s why Romans 12:9 reads the way it does: “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” Genuine love and honest abhorrence belong in the same breath.
For anyone carrying a hard story, a past abortion or a final decision made at a hospital bedside, the gospel that names the evil also says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).
And Isaiah’s woe can also reach into the church, whenever we relabel cruelty as honesty or gossip as concern.
Practice This Week
So here’s a small habit for the next two weeks. Turn the box over. Read the full text of every measure on your ballot, because the title is the front of the box.
Pray for the people on every side of it. Then do something with your hands: a meal and a ride for a mom in a hard pregnancy, a foster home, an hour beside a hospice bed. Jesus promised, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). The back of the box God wrote is always honest, even when we try to change the label.
Reflect: Where have you taken a friendly label at face value without turning the box over? Who in your life needs to see truth and compassion in the same person this week, and could that person be you?
May God always guide your path.