Responding Biblically to Hurtful Words

Dannah Gresh: Harsh words can be hard to forget. Here’s one woman’s memory.

Woman: When I think about the power of words, I think about a phrase that still I just well up with emotion as I remember all the times growing up that my father used the words "you dummy."

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free, for July 18, 2025. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy’s been leading us in a series about the power of words. She’s been helping us use our words with kindness since our words are so powerful. 

But the words of others can be powerful too. A group of women has been listening along to Nancy’s teaching, and they’re talking with Nancy about the ways words have hurt them and encouraged them.

If someone else has wounded you with words, you’ll get hope from God’s Word today. Let’s listen.

Susan: Music has always been a part of my life. When I was about five or six, at my first piano recital, I came back after playing the little piece and said, "Mom, did I do a good job?"

She said, "Well, you can always do better."

Ever since then (and I am forty-four years old today), I have had a real struggle with the feeling that I could never quite "get there."

Mother and I have discussed this, and I find myself doing that with my children. That's something I need to work on and pray about. Praise is more important. Mom told me, "Susan, I just always wanted to make sure that you did not have a proud heart. I wanted to keep you from being too prideful." And I find myself doing that to my children.

Woman 1: There was somebody that I was close to while growing up. I have always been a real private person, and I would ask this person not to share information about something—something that had happened to me.

It has damaged my relationship to prayers and requests because it was always very hurtful to me. Because she, thinking that she was doing something right in wanting others to pray for me, hurt me by sharing a confidence about something that I did not want shared.

I find that in a Christian relationship, especially among women within the church, it is very easy to say, We are not gossiping; we are praying for each other.

It is one thing if you go to somebody and ask them for prayer, but another matter when that person goes to someone else and says, "We need to pray for so-and-so because they are going through this," or "This happened to so-and-so." I think that some Christian women have used this line, "We will pray for you" as a way to spread gossip.

In addition, if that person has not asked for prayer, if it is something that has not been publicly announced or if that person has not confessed before everybody, then it is something that we should not be involved with.

God already knows. I have experienced hurt in those situations. And, I have had to watch myself, that in my concern for somebody else, I do not betray a confidence—even in a godly, Christian way, for the sake of prayer. It can become a form of gossip, and it can hurt others.

Nancy: What are some words that have been spoken to you that have given blessing and life and encouragement to you? Mary?

Mary: I had a wonderful father. He was a minister, which does not really have anything to do with the words of blessing that he gave me, but he was a wonderful example of many things. I was fortunate to have a father like that and who did love me.

The thing that he told me that blessed me, that I have continued to remember all my life and what I want more than anything to share with my children—even though I feel convicted today that I am not doing a good job of that. He said this: "Honey, I may get mad at you. I may discipline you. I may even dislike you a little bit; but there is not one thing that you can do that will keep me from loving you."

Oh, the freedom of that. I always felt that, and I knew he meant it. I knew he could get mad at me, and I knew he would make true on that promise that he would punish me when I needed correction. But he always told me, "Honey, there is not one thing you could do that would keep me from loving you."

I want my children to feel that; I want them to know that. I want my words to reflect that. My father's words were very much a blessing to my life.

Nancy: And, when your dad spoke those words to you, he was actually reflecting the heart of the heavenly Father who says, "Yes, I will discipline you; but I will never take My love from you."

 

Can you see how our words can become a means of drawing others to God? If our words are expressions of His love and His heart, then they will create a climate or a soil, an atmosphere, in the heart of the hearer that makes him or her want to know the God whom those words reflect.

Kathy: I want to say something. I knew Mary's father, and he was a wonderful man. He gave some very encouraging words to me once. When I went to the hospital and found out I had my first brain tumor, he was the first person I called . . . and he was not even the minister of my church.

But, I knew her mom; I worked with her mom. Her dad came and prayed for me; and he said, "Kathy, no matter what happens, you will be okay because you know the Lord. The Lord will bless you—either here on earth or with Him."

Those words have stuck with me and have become a byword for me. Because as I faced a second brain tumor and some other things, those words just resonate in me now as they do every day of my life. Now, this is the way I pray, No matter what happens, Lord, I know You. And I will be okay.

Susan: Sometimes, it is not necessarily the words; it is the way people react to things—like with my father. My father has been in Christian ministry all his life. There are always people out there criticizing people in Christian ministry. I can remember when someone would criticize my father, he would just say, "That is all right."

It never went any further, and he was fine. However, I can remember, lying in bed at night, composing speeches that I wanted to give to this person such as, How dare you say this!

Sometimes hurtful words can be said to someone we love, and God gives them the grace to handle it, but maybe He doesn't give the same grace to us. My husband works in a church and is also a politician so I get it from two different directions. Just recently, in our church, some people have met with my husband to tell him how wrong he is in this and that. Some of that was not the truth.

When he told me about it, my first reaction was just, "Oh, how dare they! They are just bitter, bitter, bitter people!"

He just said to me, "Susan, God really showed me that I need to respond . . . (These were words of blessing to me.) I need to respond and listen to everything they say—just be quiet and listen to them. If there is just a morsel of truth in what they say, then I need to fix it. I need to pray about it and ask God what I can do. And, if there is not, then that is okay. I can just leave the rest of it. I think you need to bake them a cake or something."

I replied, "Oh, no." That would be me then giving them a blessing where I know they have been so hurt so much by other people and they are spreading that hurt around. It is difficult for me to actually do something for those people or even smile at them at church. I know that God has to do a work in my heart.

I have a quotation that says, "There is nothing that can happen to me that does not come through God Himself first." So if it comes to me, that means, God wants it there. He allowed it. He lets it be for my good. So I know that this has happened for my good. 

My husband has blessed. My father has blessed me. He is known as the whistler. Everyone just loves him because he is just joyful and whistles and sings. My husband doesn't whistle or sing, but he is a great encourager to me to me and my father is a great encourager to me. I do not recall any particular words, but it is just the attitude of encouragement and blessing that blesses me.

Janie: I became a mother when I was eighteen years old; I had no idea how to be a mother. Eighteen years and six children later, I still, most of the time, had no idea what I was doing and wondered if I ever would.

Then, God sent a friend into my life. She looked into my eyes one day, put her hands on my shoulders and she said, "Janie, you are such a good mother."

Nobody had ever said that to me. I did not know if I was or not—it still makes me cry just to think about it—but those words were so valuable to me.

I have four daughters and a daughter-in-law now, and I am very careful to tell them that they are really good mothers. I look for times to tell them that because it meant so much to me.

Nancy: Nobody is the kind of mother they really want to be. God can use those kinds of encouraging words—whether they are to us as a mother or any other aspect of our lives—to strengthen parts of us that are still weak.

I remember years ago being in a church service and a man asked us to find someone in the service, to go to them, and tell them something we saw in their life that reminded us of Jesus that we appreciated.

There was a couple in that same service who approached me. The man said, "I want you to know that one of the things I/we appreciate about you is that we see a spirit of meekness—a gentle and quiet and meek spirit—in your life.

Well, I was really taken aback. First of all, if I were to use adjectives to describe me, particularly in those early years and even to this day, meek and quiet would not come naturally. I know that this wife was truly a meek and quiet-spirited woman of God. I felt like quite the opposite of that next to her. But those words were spoken so sincerely.

God used the encouragement of those words in an area where I felt very off the mark. It gave me a sense of hope that at least there were seeds of those qualities, things that I know are precious to the Lord. It gave me a motivation to want to be that kind of woman, so that really, truly could be said.

Say you wear a dress one day and during that day, six different people tell you how nice it looks; you want to wear that dress every day for the rest of your life! Words of encouragement motivate us, even if we are not being a good mother in the sense of that standard we know God has for us.

When someone tells you, "I see God doing a work in making you a good mother," or "I see the spirit of meekness in you,"  you say, "Wow, well, maybe God really could make me the kind of person that I want to be." It encourages us to go further than we might have otherwise.

As you think about those people who have created an atmosphere and an attitude of blessing around you, ask yourself, Is that the kind of atmosphere that I create? Would the people around me say that I create an atmosphere of blessing?

I was with a Christian leader the other day, the head of a Christian institution ministry, and I came away saying, "That man is such an encourager!" He's focused on other people. He's always . . . encouragement just flows out of him as he just naturally says things that lift people up and encourage them.

I like being around someone like that, and I want to be that kind of person. I'll just tell you that I'm not. I saw in him a model of a servant of the Lord, and I said, "I want my life to create an atmosphere where people would come away saying 'I've been blessed; I've been encouraged.' That is the kind of person I want to be, because their life reminds me of Jesus."

Woman 2: First of all, I just want to say thank you to the Lord for just the conviction and the encouragement it is to be here today. The power of the tongue is something that He’s really been working with me on for the last several months.

Recently I was with a long-standing girlfriend and had shared about a recent visit with a relative of hers. She back and said, "I just had such a hard time. This cousin of mind is such a know-it-all . . . and she won't admit she's a know-it-all. Now, I'm a know-it-all and I admit I'm a know-it-all. The Lord convicted me that I my live has been pretty much a know-it-all.

When I think about the power of words, I think about a phrase that still I just well up with emotion as I remember all the times growing up that my father used the words, “You dummy.”

As a child I was a voracious reader. I was constantly searching for knowledge. I was searching for information, searching for ways of not being a dummy. I find at times what happens with me is I share information thinking I’m sharing something of help or something that would be received well, and many times it may not be.

Just yesterday I had a situation where I was just trying to make a simple explanation of why I needed to get off the telephone, and I was reminded that I didn’t need to share all that information. I didn’t need to explain to someone everything that was going on so that they wouldn’t think that I was a dummy.

So the power of words is just hitting me over and over and over again through the Word, through music, through today. I'm very grateful for that. Yet, I  still just have great pain because I haven’t resolved some of this hurt and issue from my father. Because of that, I have not honored my father. I need to go to him and ask him to forgive me.

Nancy: Let me respond for a moment to when you’re on the receiving end of the hurtful words. All of us have been. Some of you have very sensitive, tender hearts, and that’s a good thing. But the enemy can use that tenderness and that sensitivity and that wonderful memory that some of us have to also cause us to live in defeat and bondage because of words that have been spoken to our hearts that have been a piercing sword like Proverbs says. It can be very destructive. God doesn't intend that you should have to live under the bondage of words that have been spoken to you that were not biblical or not godly or not appropriately timed.

So what does the Scripture say about how we can respond when we’ve been the recipients of hurtful words?

A number of passages come to mind. First of all, we have to go back to the Word. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God” (John 1:1). Who was the Word? Jesus Christ is God’s Word, and the Word put on flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus Christ, who is the expression, the revelation of who God is, that’s the Word. He came to this earth, and I think in context of the passage in Psalm 107, verse 20, that says, “He sent His Word and healed them.”

Now, the ministry of Christ is multifaceted. Of course, His purpose for coming to earth was redemptive. It was to go to the cross and to suffer and die and bear the penalty for our sins. Part of what He bore there on the cross was all the hurtful, hateful, ugly hearts that produced hurtful, hateful, ugly words. Those we’ve spoken and those that have been spoken to us.

He paid the penalty, which is death. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. He took the death that is the fruit of our evil words and the fruit of the evil words that have been spoken to us. “By His wounds,” 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 24, says, “you have been healed.” There is healing available to us through the cross of Christ. That’s part of why God sent His Word to us so that His Word could heal us from all the damage that words have done to us and the damage that our words have done to others.

We’ve got to go back to the cross. That’s where the price was paid. That’s where the penalty was paid. That’s where that sin was dealt with.

Now, as we enter into the cross of Christ, there’s hope, there’s faith, but there is healing. There is release. There is freedom available that you don’t have to live as a dummy, a snake, some of the things that have been said, that have been heard, that now decades later are still haunting some of your hearts. You don’t have to live in that bondage. You can live in healing and in freedom because God sent His Word and healed us. It’s through the cross that there is healing and that freedom and that release.

Now, what do we do now that we’re in Christ? How can we become instruments of that healing in the lives of others becomes the issue. How can we appropriate that healing? How can we respond even now as believers to those hurtful words?

First Peter gives us some very practical, wise counsel about responding to insults, to attacks that are verbal attacks. First Peter chapter 3, verse 8: “Finally, all of you be of one mind.” Remember, we said we’re a body, those of us who are in Christ. That’s why it’s such a sin to speak hurtful, hateful, ugly, unkind, untrue, unnecessary words because when we do, we divide friendships. We divide relationships. We divide marriages by speaking words that bring death.

So Peter says the issue with the words doesn’t start with the words. It starts in the heart. Be of one mind. Be who you are in Christ, which is one mind, one body, one person in Christ. Have compassion for one another. Love as brothers. Be tenderhearted. Be courteous. That’s all a heart matter. As we deal with those heart issues, we’re going to find that what comes out of our mouths and the way we respond to the words of others, we will be helped. It starts in the heart.

Then he says, verse 9, and here’s where the words come in, having dealt with the heart issues, having compassion for one another, loving his brother, being tenderhearted, being courteous to one another, verse 9, “not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling.”

• First principle, recognize your wound.
• Second principle, let God’s love fill your heart so that you’re reacting and responding and speaking out of the love of Christ, with tenderheartedness even for those who have spoken evil, hateful things.
• Then principle three, don’t return evil for evil. Make sure you don’t give back the reviling.

Peter knew what we all know. That’s what’s natural for us. When we’ve been wounded, our natural reaction is to retaliate or to defend ourselves; to give back in some way. We may not revile that person to their face, but we may revile them to someone else. That’s the natural response, and Peter says don’t do that. You’re one. Operate out of the heart God has put in you, which is heart of love, a heart of courtesy, a heart of tenderheartedness, a family love for each other. Don’t return evil for evil or reviling for reviling.

But he doesn’t stop there. This, I think, what he says next is one of the most liberating principles in all of God’s Word.

• [Principle four] He says, on the contrary, don’t give evil for evil. Don’t retaliate. Don’t revile back, but instead, give blessing. Return blessing.

Who’s he talking about here? To the people who have done evil to you. The people who have reviled you. The people who have spoken evil to you. What do you give back? A blessing. Speak words of blessing—about them, to them, into their life.

Some of you in this setting have just taken an opportunity to bless those who have reviled you. As you do, you become an instrument of healing in their life, and you experience release yourself from the bondage of those wounds. Now, that doesn’t mean that you never remember it, that there’s not still pain associated with that, but there’s a freedom and there’s a release because you’ve given blessing.

He says, “knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing” (1 Peter 3:9). You’ve been called to inherit a blessing and because you have a blessing, you can give a blessing to the one who has spoken evil to you. So he says, verse 10, “For He who would love life and see good days . . .”

If you want to experience the most out of life, if you want to experience the richest of God’s blessing in your life, if you want a full and meaningful life that’s not controlled by what others have said to you, “let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit” (1 Peter 3:10).

Notice he started by talking about people who reviled you. Now, he’s saying if you want to have a blessed life—he’s not saying the key to a blessed life is to stay away from people who speak evil to you. He’s saying the key to a blessed life is watch your tongue, watch your words.

That reminds me of Proverbs 15, verse 23, which I think is a wonderful insight in God’s Word, “A man has joy by the answer of his mouth.” See we tend to think that our joy is determined by what others say to us. So when someone says something hurtful to me, boy does that kill my joy real fast.

I find myself discouraged, despondent, frustrated, angry, wanting to retaliate in subtle ways perhaps. I say, “That person, the way that family member, the way that fellow worker, the letter I got from that person, the way that person spoke to me”—it can just take the wind out of your sails. Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

But Proverbs says a man has joy, not by what others say to him, but by how we answer and respond to those who speak to us. A word spoken in due season, how fitting it is. So the joy comes as we respond with a blessing. As we give back blessing in exchange for having received reviling.

Now, you think about that mate whose cutting words have wounded you. When you think about that child who is speaking evil against you right now, and it just like a knife, a sword in your heart. You think about those parents—your parents might not even be living any longer, but you’re still carrying the sword wound of words that were said to you as a child.

I’m not promising that God will put you in the place where you will forget it. I’m not sure—it may be the very memory of it that God will use to keep your heart tender. I am saying you don’t have to live under the bondage, that you can get your heart so full of the love of Christ if you’re a child of God, that you have the power within you by the power of His Holy Spirit not to return evil, not to return reviling, not to dishonor those who dishonored you, but instead to return blessing. Guard your tongue, refrain your tongue from evil, keep your lips from speaking deceit, and then you will have joy by the answer of your mouth.

As God sent His Word to heal your wounded heart, wounded by words that others perhaps have spoken to you, you will become—through the cross of Christ as it is applied to your heart—you become an instrument of grace and healing and a fountain of life to others. He sent His Word and healed them. What do you do once you’ve been healed? You take up that Word and you become an instrument of healing in the life of someone else.

Some of you have an opportunity now to pass on to your children and your grandchildren the kind of blessing and encouragement and hope and life that you didn’t receive from your parents. So let the reminder be a source of conviction.

I get around some people who are just so negative, so critical, and I find myself feeling pulled down, dragged down, discouraged, and reactionary at points. But then God says to me let that person and the way they affect you, let that be a mirror to see how your words can hurt and wound and affect others in ways you may not even realize, as they probably don’t realize the impact that their words are having. Instead let Me—God says to me—let Me fill your heart with the kind of love that speaks words of blessing and encouragement that becomes a means of healing to others.

Dannah: If you have been wounded by the words of others, God can turn that situation around to help you be an encourager. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been sharing that hope with you, wrapping up a series called “The Power of Words.” 

Did you know? Her teaching from this series is available in print, too! You can read the transcripts through the Revive Our Hearts app, or at ReviveOurHearts.com.

And for a donation of any amount, we’d love to send you the booklet by Nancy by the same title, The Power of Words. It’s a four-week study that will help you think through how the Proverbs on the tongue apply to your life. Request the booklet The Power of Words when you contact us with your gift. To do that, visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. 

If you’re a Revive Partner, don’t forget about Share the Wonder, the upcoming live event exclusively for our Revive Partners. It's this Tuesday evening, July 22. I will be there, along with Nancy. Revive Partners support us with their prayers and monthly giving. For more information, check out ReviveOurHearts.com/partner. 

Well, the most powerful word of all is, of course God’s Word, the Bible. On Monday Kelly Needham will remind us of the purpose of the Scriptures. So if the Bible ever seem boring or irrelevant to you, be sure to listen in next week on Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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