Tag: edifying

Winning Words

Dale Pollard

Ephesians 4.29 says, 

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” 

If you were to open up any Greek interlinear (like in the BlueLetter Bible app) and look at the key words in this verse it becomes even more practical. 

Unwholesome: 

“Rotten, putrefied” 

Helpful: 

“good, pleasant, agreeable, joyful, happy” 

Benefit: 

“that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness: grace of speech” 

There are three rules for winning words in Ephesians 4.29 and they are… 

1. Don’t let anything rotten come from your mouth. If it comes from a bad place keep your mouth shut. 

2. If it doesn’t build someone up don’t say it. Our ultimate goal must be to promote growth and if it doesn’t do that, it’s not worth saying. 

3. If It doesn’t bring delight, show grace, or joy in the end— don’t say it. 

This is the way Jesus treats us. If it’s God’s approach then who are we to say otherwise? No excuse, situation, or feeling should remove grace from the words we say. 

Bad Breath Babbling

Neal Pollard

You want to do some appetizing research?  Go to the Mayo Clinic website and read about what causes bad breath. The harbingers of halitosis include food that gets stuck in your teeth, tobacco, poor dental hygiene, dry mouth (this occurs most frequently when sleeping at night, thus “morning breath”), oral infections, and many similar pleasant precipitators (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/bad-breath/basics/causes/CON-20014939).  Now isn’t that a joyful matter to ponder!

Well, have you considered the very graphic imagery Paul uses in Ephesians 4:29 to describe improper speech?  He says, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth…”  That word “unwholesome” is an interesting word (ESV—”corrupting”).  It is from a Greek word meaning “to cause to decay” (TDNT).  The footnote of my Bible says “literally, rotten.”  The Greeks used the word to describe what offends the sense of sight and smell, but it came to describe even offensive sounds as an ancient fragment from Theopompus Comicus used the word to describe the “unpleasant sounds of flutes” (CAF, I, 746). They used the word to describe bad vegetables and rotting fish (WSNTDICT).

Notice what the Holy Spirit through Paul does with the word.  In guiding the Ephesians in how not to walk, Paul gets graphic by warning against “smelly speech.”  Get the picture by considering the descriptive word.  When you talk, does what you say have the figurative effect of compost, fish carcasses, and the like?  Or, let us come at it by way of contrast, as Paul does.  Instead of uttering waste dump words, use “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.”

Throw away trashy speech through uplifting, timely, graceful talk!  Is what you say helpful to others? Does it build them up? Does it bring them closer to Christ? Is it just the right word at the right time?  If so, it’s like moral mouthwash!

If not, then let God’s diagnosis hit home!  Clean up your conversations.  Make sure what you say to others is to them a breath of fresh air!