Articles
Give Grace to Those Who Hear
“Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” (Ephesians 4:29)
If we are not making it our goal to give grace when we speak to others, we shouldn’t be surprised when they do not receive our words as edification. It is true that some do not want to hear the truth. We can’t control their desire to hear. We are commanded to control what we say and how we say it, and it is hard to find any room for an exception in Paul’s words: “only such a word as is good for edification.”
Verbally “dunking” on people is often how debates are judged in our culture, even if the “dunker’s” arguments are actually weak. It’s all about harsh words and clever insults. We may think that we see some “dunking” in the teaching of men like John the Baptist, Paul, or even Jesus. But do we really think that Jesus was only trying to score points when His words seemed to cut right to the heart of the very issue His hearers were trying to avoid? Maybe we need to consider the difficulty of judging the tone of a speech on paper. Let’s be careful not to accuse God’s messengers of carnal tactics in order to justify speech on our part that is not seeking to be gracious and edifying.
Grace without truth is reckless and such an approach will almost certainly mislead us to a destination of false comfort. Yet, truth without grace is discouraging and unattainable. God did not deliver His truth to us without grace. We may think that our efforts to speak truth in a gracious way will allow someone will get away with their sins. But God will decide when the time of repentance has past and he will condemn those who reject His truth which was spoken with grace by His children.
We may have to draw lines of fellowship if someone refuses to repent. This is in keeping with the truth. Still, those lines are drawn with the hope that the pain of separation will awaken an impenitent person to their sins. “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.“ (2 Thessalonians 3:14, 15)
There just doesn’t seem to be any way for disciples of Jesus to give up the goal of imparting grace, even when we feel pretty confident that someone is not being honest.
