WOUNDING OTHERS BY OUR WORDS

One of the hallmarks of our tendency to sin is that we feel the need to criticize, we take pleasure in gossiping, and we feel qualified to make judgments, often with very little information.

We slander others for a host of reasons. Perhaps we’re jealous of another’s success. Maybe we’re just insecure. But we also find a tendency to speak ill of others when they disagree with our way of seeing the world. Rather than trying to fully understand why they believe what they believe,  and being open to the possibility that we are wrong, we feel threatened by their convictions. Because talking with those who disagree with us face-to-face about why we think they are wrong might be a bit too threatening, and would require that we listen to their views and arguments, we find it easier to criticize them where it is safe, among friends or like-minded people, on our blogs, or via e-mail.

We say things to our friends about these persons we would never say to them face-to-face. We judge their motives and their deeds. Most of us have committed this sin. We have all wounded others by our words. We have misrepresented them, spoken out of turn, and judged them without really taking the time to understand them. 

-- Adam Hamilton in Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White


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