Romans 12:14 | What Comes Out of Your Mouth When Someone Hurts You

This is where Romans 12 stops talking about life inside a healthy community and starts talking about what happens when someone is actively working against you.

The instruction is simple and difficult at the same time. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse.

In this episode we look at what blessing actually means here, because it is easy to reduce it to something sentimental. The word is eulogein, to speak well of, to call good things over someone. It is a speech act rooted in a heart posture. You cannot genuinely bless someone you are privately nursing a grievance against. What Paul is describing is not a technique for managing conflict. It is the outward expression of an interior that has been genuinely formed by mercy.

Paul also says it twice. Bless. And do not curse. The repetition is intentional. He is not just giving you the positive command. He is naming the alternative and telling you to refuse it. Because not cursing is its own discipline. It is the choice you make every time the story comes up. Every time someone gives you an opening to say the thing you are thinking. Every time the bitterness offers itself as relief and you decide not to take it.

This one is for anyone who is still in the room with the person who hurt them. Which in a church context is most of us.

Formation to Transformation is a worship devotional for people who want worship to be more than a song set. New episodes every week through Romans 12.

Mentioned in this episode:

If you've enjoyed this devotional, would you please leave a rating and a review? You can keep up with everything at ryanloche.substack.com