We Often Characterize words as hurtful, biting, stinging, wounding. Certainly the words themselves have no injurious powers. Rather, we're feeling the thoughts of the one who said them. Or, we feel the prickliness of our own thought responding to what has been said. We may believe we have a right to feel wounded, but to hang on to the wrong done to us (whether actual or imagined) serves no good purpose; while to understand the spiritual power of forgiveness is a transforming, healing agent.
Christ Jesus was called "gluttonous, and a winebibber," serving Beelzebub (Satan). See Matt. 11:19; 12:24. His opponents even tried to trap him with his words or twist their meaning. Sometimes Jesus rebuked his critics very directly, but his actions always illustrated his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. See Matt., chaps. 5-7 . There he speaks of blessing those who curse us, doing good to those who hate us, and praying for those who use and persecute us. See Matt. 5:44 .
Saul of Tarsus was well known for his cruel treatment of Christians. Yet, after his own conversion to Christianity, Paul (as he came to be known) wrote extensively in fellowship to other Christians, encouraging them in the ways of the Master, Christ Jesus. He preached brotherly love, forgiveness, goodwill. These Godlike qualities were personified in the brief career of Jesus, but can always be felt through Christ, the divine idea of God, which Jesus represented. Paul urged his fellow Christians, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Phil. 2:5.
