When Jesus was in his final moment of tender instruction of his disciples, offering words meant to prepare them for a life of faith after his ascension, he said this: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). The norm for God’s children should be love, the thing for which the listening and watching world should know us. The mark of a disciple of Christ, the core indication that we have been visited, rescued, and transformed by grace, is not first our theological purity, our proficiency in explaining and defending the doctrines of Christianity, the number of years of ministry experience we have under our belt, or how many achievements with which we have been involved at our church. No, it is this one thing: love.
The standard for our communication with one another is not just some standard of cultural niceness. The standard is nothing less than the generous, sacrificial, pure, forgiving, and faithful love that God has so graciously showered down on us in the person of his Son. Now, I will speak for myself here: this kind of love is not natural for me. If I am going to live out in word and deed that which God has chosen to be the norm for his children, then I need to start by confessing how utterly foreign this kind of love is for me and to cry out for his rescuing and transforming grace. I do not so much need to be delivered from the people around me who seem hard to love and to be transported to some community populated by easier-to-love people. No, I need to be rescued from me because, until our Lord returns, I will continue to be a flawed person living near, relating to, and communicating with flawed people in a fallen world.
John tells us the reason we have any ability whatsoever to love one another is because we have first been loved by God (1 John 4:19). He even goes so far as to say this: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:7-8). Since God is love, everyone who knows God and is walking in communion with him should live a life characterized by love. John’s argument for the motivational centrality of love in the life of each one of God’s children could not be stronger. Do we carry this central mark of discipleship? Is everything we say shaped by it? Is every reaction we make tempered by it? Is it the character quality for which we are known? Or do we communicate our points strongly but at the expense of love? Do we react without taking the time necessary to have that reaction shaped by love? Does a quick-witted putdown motivate us more than a humble, patient, gentle, and loving response?
Many of us are communicating in a way that falls way below the standard set for us in 1 John 4. Much of our private interaction would create great embarrassment for us if played in public. Worse, with the rise of social media, many of us have become emboldened or calloused to communicate publicly on platforms with little shame or awareness of how far we have fallen from the standard of biblical communication. By the power of God’s amazing grace, however, we can do better.
Destructive or Constructive Communication?
I want to examine one verse from Ephesians that exposes why we communicate with one another the way we do, what a much better way looks like, and what makes that better way possible. This verse sits right in the middle of Paul’s lengthy portrait of what it looks like in everyday life and relationships to live in light of the gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Eph. 4:29).
The first thing that is vital to notice is that Paul’s discussion of wholesome (the opposite
of corrupting) communication is not a discussion of vocabulary. He does not define
“corrupting” talk by offering a list of forbidden words. Now, this does not mean that we are free to use sexually explicit, damning, or culturally impolite terms whenever and however we wish. In fact, this verse warns us that defining unwholesome talk by a list of words is too low of a standard! For Paul, “corrupting talk” is, first and foremost, a matter of the intention of the heart. We can cruelly mock a person and not use one single bad word. We can post something that is meant to harm while not using certain offensive words. We can respond vengefully while priding ourselves that we have not cursed the person. However, if, as the family of God, we are ever going to address the culture of harmful communication that lives not just in the surrounding culture but also in our family, we must get below the level of vocabulary and shine the light of biblical wisdom on the thoughts, desires, and intentions of our hearts. This is exactly where the attention needs to be, because Jesus has said that every word that comes out of our mouth finds its origin and formation in our heart (see Luke 6:43-45).
Our tongues will only ever go where our hearts have already gone. So a commitment to wholesome talk is first a commitment not to a restricted vocabulary but rather to a change at the level of the thoughts, desires, intentions, and choices of the heart. Paul delineates three heart commitments that will always lie behind a culture of wholesome communication with one another.
- What we say must be shaped by a consideration of the person who will hear it.
“Only such as is good for building up.” Here is an application of “love your neighbor as yourself” to our world of communication. This is a call to other-centered language. My talk with others is done not for me but out of loving consideration for them.
What if we stopped to think of the person we were talking to as a person, that is, a being made in the image of God? What if we took the time to think of others in their world, having a normal set of responsibilities and people who love them and whom they love? What if we considered how they have been hit with the burdens, temptations, and heartaches of life in this fallen world? What if we took time to think about how they will be impacted by our words?
What if we communicated with that person out of love because we really do want him or her to benefit from and to be built up by whatever it is we are about to say or send? What if we cared enough to want that person to learn something new, to grow in self-awareness, to have a deeper confidence in God, to be encouraged in some way, or to gain new courage or motivation? What if every discussion were preceded by this kind of others-centered consideration? What if we only ever spoke to build up others?
To pursue talk that is “only such as is good for building up” means that the core character quality of wholesome communication is love. In these words is a call to intentional, focused commitment to loving communication, no matter how wrong we think people are or how hurt or angry they have made us. When love is the expendable ingredient in our communication, there is no end to the hurt, chaos, division, and harm our reactions will produce. But when we refuse to abandon this call to love and instead determine only ever to speak the truth in love, we will say what we need to say in a radically different manner and with an entirely different tone. The destructive power of words is not difficult to understand; it is the darkness of the failure to love. The human community, as God has designed it, cannot function without love. Human communication cannot work without love. Without love, human interaction becomes a war zone with a list of casualties too many to number.
We all need encouragement. We all need loving rebuke. We all need insight. We all need fresh starts and new beginnings. We all need to know that we are not alone. We all need gifts of patience and grace along the way. Each of us needs to be built up, and each of us is called to be a builder. This mutuality of community is a beautiful gift from a wise and loving God. The church of Jesus Christ will continue to be harmed, and our conversations dark and dangerous as long as tearing down seems more attractive than building up one another.
- What we say must be shaped by an understanding of the situation.
“As fits the occasion.” Before we talk or respond, we must consider not only the person (with the intent to build up him or her) but also the moment into which we are speaking. We must pay attention to the situation and location of the conversation. Have we asked enough questions? Do we have the full context? Is the person confused? Is he grieving? Is something making him angry? Has he lost his way?
Then let us ask ourselves, Why do I feel the need to engage? What am I hoping my interaction will accomplish? Do I have anything to add that would clarify, advance, or calm the conversation? Is my desire to react born out of hurt and anger, or is it motivated by loving concern? Am I tempted to make myself the hero of the dialog? Ephesians 4 encourages us to slow down because wholesome communication flows from a careful consideration of the moment.
- What we say must be shaped by the goal of grace.
“That it may give grace to those who hear.” Paul teaches that everything we say, no matter when we say it, no matter to whom we say it, and no matter the topic, must have grace as its goal. Whenever we talk about responding with grace as a goal, there is typically some misunderstanding. When people hear the word grace, they think it means being nice, permissive, or passive, choosing not to deal with difficult things. But it is important to recognize that God’s grace is anything but passive. Grace never calls wrong right. If wrong were right, there would be no need for the rescuing, intervening, and transformative operation of grace. Grace is not about ignoring wrong; it is a radically different way of dealing with wrong. Responding in grace requires humbly admitting one’s inability, coupled with a robust trust in the power of God.
So what exactly does Ephesians 4:29 mean for the world of communication? The answer is found in James 1:19-20: “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” There is so much instruction about gospel living and communication packed into these three phrases: “quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” It is as though this text were written as an explanation of what it looks like to be committed to listen first, to allow time before you speak, and never to speak out of anger. If we all were committed to allowing these three directives to shape our reactions to one another, many of our personal relationships would be immediately transformed!
But here is the rub. For this to happen, we all need to be visited by rescuing and empowering grace. Talk toxicity is a heart problem solved only by redeeming grace. I must confess that I do like to talk more than I like to listen. I have moments when I let anger shape my words. But, as with every other spiritual need, God meets our communication struggles with forgiving, rescuing, and transforming grace.
We have a talking problem. It is harming us, our unity, our ability to grow together, and our witness. But there is help for the taking in the powerful grace of Jesus.
Taken from ESV Everyday Gospel Bible by Paul David Tripp, Copyright © 2024, pp. 1662-1664. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of GoodNews Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.
Grab a copy of Paul David Tripp’s devotional, Everyday Gospel, here.
