He instead used their evil words to give a message , a message of hope , peace , and everlasting life . When He was the recipient of evil words , He turned those words around to express the love and mercy offered to humanity . This only frustrated those opposed to Christ and the harder they tried to trap Jesus with words , they couldn ’ t get the response they wanted . The words of man ultimately found their way to have Christ crucified . Even then , when lies were spewed about Him , Jesus didn ’ t respond hate with hate , but love to hate through His words and ultimately His body and life .
This begs the question of how we should respond to offensive language tossed at us . We do face hurtful words from nonbelievers , and we are also on the receiving end of unloving words from our brothers and sisters in Christ . Maybe someone at work mocks your beliefs when you pray at lunch . Maybe a nonbelieving family member slanders your rebirth in Christ because you are a completely different person now than before . What about the fellow Christian who admonishes you for not being a “ good ” Christian ? How about those that just wait for you to trip a little and then point out how bad a Christian you are ?
When faced with these types of situations , what do we do to respond ? Sometimes we just smile and say nothing out of fear of reprisals or loss of relationships . At times , we return slander for slander out of anger . The right response is to respond to offensive words with love . Ya ,
I know , this is hard when a person seems to be foaming at the mouth with words to belittle you for your beliefs and your mind is swirling thoughts of how to hurt the other person like they did to you .
Proverbs 12:18 tells us the tongue of the wise brings healing to those who use words like swords towards us . We have a choice of response when faced with words of destruction . We can reciprocate the same or use the situation as an opportunity . This opportunity is not to put down the offender but to bring words of understanding and love via emulating how Christ responded to those who slandered and tried to bring Him down .
Colossians 4:6 ( KJV ) tells us to “ Let your speech be always with grace , seasoned with salt , that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man .” This tells us to not use harsh language to answer men that disparage us with words . Using grace with wisdom is the response we are to give . Grace is giving them something they don ’ t deserve , but we need to do it anyway- forgive them for their words . In response , we must also sprinkle the wisdom we have attained through the Word and from the Holy Spirit when we answer the charges against us . There are plenty of evil ways to answer those who don ’ t like us through mean words but there is only one way to really answer- with love .
The majority of people who attempt to offend us are not bad people- they just don ’ t understand our beliefs and values . It is our charge to gently educate them of our beliefs and values vice what they understand them to be . There are a lot of misnomers about Christians and our beliefs . There is a societal belief that Christians are prejudiced towards nonbelievers or we as Christians are better than nonbelievers . There is some truth to this . We all know of those Christians who act “ high and mighty ” towards others , thinking they are special because the follow Jesus . There are Christians who look down on nonbelievers and talk down to them like they are trash .
Can we blame those who slander us ? I can ’ t . I ’ ve seen it done to nonbelievers . I ’ ve seen the arrogance of so called Christians that commit these actions . They give true believers a bad name . Our charge is to spread the word of Christ , not circle the wagons to keep people out . The offenses we receive are most likely in response to offenses nonbelievers have experienced from the words of other Christians . We are no better than nonbelieverswe are all fallen man , prone to sin , hate , and discontent . The only difference is we have accepted the grace and mercy offered us through the blood of Christ .
Christians can use situations where offense if taken to bring people to Christ . By expressing and educating those who don ’ t understand what following Christ means , at a minimum , we will likely not be the recipients of offensive words from people , or we can do the extraordinary by using our words to introduce and