Dr. Dontá McGilvery reflects on Paul’s instruction to let no unwholesome talk come from our mouths and considers what that command requires in a divided world. Wholesome talk is not simply being nice; it is learning to speak truth, correction, encouragement, and even disagreement in ways that give grace and build up the Body of Christ.
Recently, I attended an event where each participant received a small sack filled with random toys. We were instructed to empty the bag, choose the object we considered most meaningful, and explain why. Among the dice, dinosaur, popsicle stick, race car, and other objects was a small skull that no one at my table selected. Then a woman nearing 80 years of age picked it up and said, “I can tell by the teeth that this is the skull of a healthy person.” Astonished, someone asked how she managed to find something good to say about a skull. She replied, “You have to find something good to say about everything, even the things that we are afraid of.”
Her response made me think about Paul’s words: “Let no 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.” Notice that Paul does not merely tell Christians what not to say. Instead, Paul gives speech a purpose: our words should build others up, respond to what they need, and benefit those who hear them. In the larger context of Ephesians 4, Paul is describing what a community transformed by Christ should look like, including putting away falsehood, bitterness, rage, anger, slander, and malice. Wholesome speech, then, is foundational to Christian formation.
That kind of formation matters especially during chaotic and polarized times. Christians encounter people inside and outside the church with whom we strongly disagree, and sometimes we behave as though speaking graciously about an opponent somehow strengthens that person while weakening us. But grace is not a limited resource, and another person’s dignity does not diminish our own. Jesus teaches his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. If Christ can require love toward an enemy, surely Christians can learn to speak about people we disagree with without stripping them of their humanity.
Preserving someone’s humanity, however, does not require pretending that everything they do is good. This is where wholesome talk is sometimes confused with “niceness.” Wholesome speech is not artificial positivity, conflict avoidance, or silence in the presence of injustice. Earlier in the same chapter, Paul calls Christians to “speak the truth in love.” Sometimes the most wholesome thing we can say is, “What happened was wrong,” “That behavior hurt me,” “I disagree with you,” or “This cannot continue.” The Christian challenge is learning to tell the truth without using truth as permission to destroy another person.
That challenge becomes especially difficult when the person has harmed us. Some may reasonably ask, “Why should I search for something good in someone who has done something wrong?” Wholesome talk does not require victims to minimize abuse, reconcile without accountability, or remain in unsafe relationships. Mercy and boundaries can exist together, and forgiveness does not require pretending that harm never happened. Wholesome speech asks that even when accountability is necessary, we resist letting bitterness, humiliation, or revenge become the language through which we pursue it.
Resisting that language requires practice because wholesome speech begins before our mouths open. James instructs believers to be “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” Before responding to a difficult comment in a church meeting, pause long enough to ask what response would actually help. Before forwarding an unflattering story about another member, ask whether sharing it builds anyone up. Before responding online, consider whether you would use the same words if the person were sitting across the table. Sometimes wholesome talk begins with the spiritual discipline of saying nothing until we can speak in a way that gives grace.
Giving grace through our speech also benefits more than the person receiving it. Wholesome talk nourishes the speaker, the listener, and ultimately the entire Body of Christ. Congregations become healthier when people can disagree without becoming enemies, offer correction without humiliation, apologize without defensiveness, and encourage one another without ulterior motives. Children and younger Christians also learn what Christian community looks like by listening to how mature believers speak about one another, particularly when conflict arises. Every conversation, then, can teach something about the character of the community we claim Christ has created.
Perhaps pastors and ministry leaders can help cultivate such communities by making wholesome communication part of discipleship rather than assuming Christians automatically know how to practice it. Bible studies and leadership gatherings can include opportunities to practice listening, healthy disagreement, apology, conflict resolution, and speaking truth in love. Leaders can refuse to entertain gossip, model gracious language from the pulpit, and establish expectations for how disagreements are handled in meetings and ministries. Churches might even periodically ask a simple question inspired by Ephesians 4:29: Are the ways we speak to and about one another giving grace to those who hear us?
That question takes me back to the little skull sitting on the table. The woman did not deny that it was a skull, transform it into something prettier, or pretend that others were wrong to find it unsettling. She simply trained her eyes to notice that even in something people feared, something healthy remained worth acknowledging.
Perhaps wholesome talk requires Christians to develop a similar discipline of sight before we develop a discipline of speech. In a world increasingly practiced at finding the worst thing to say about someone, imagine the witness of a church practiced in truth without cruelty, correction without humiliation, disagreement without dehumanization, and grace without dishonesty. Perhaps then the world would not only hear our Christianity in what we proclaim about Christ; it would hear Christ in the way we speak to one another.
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Related Resources
- 5 Suggestions for Managing Conflict in Polarized Contexts by David R. Brubaker
- 3 Ways to Listen Well by C. Kavin Rowe
- 5 Rules for Engaging Taboo Subjects in Churches by Elizabeth Evans Hagan
- Leading Your Church Faithfully Through Elections by Kendal L. McBroom
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