Responding to mean comments

[Monica4316]

Hi

what is the best way to act when someone says something very hurtful to you? what would be most Christ-like… would it be to say nothing in response? what about afterwards…should we act as if nothing had happened?

maybe it depends who the person is… let’s say it’s someone in your family or group of close friends.

thank you

 

[JasJose]

Hi

what is the best way to act when someone says something very hurtful to you? what would be most Christ-like… would it be to say nothing in response? what about afterwards…should we act as if nothing had happened?

maybe it depends who the person is… let’s say it’s someone in your family or group of close friends.

thank you

Well, from a practical standpoint, I think may be we can warn that person/persons that he/she is hurting by words. Still if they dont care, better to avoid that person/persons since I feel no use of keeping such relationship. We can’t consider someone as a friend who doesn’t care about our feelings. This is my own opinion, others may have different opinions.

In a christ-like way, I think we have examples in NT where he use to reply those Jews something like tit-for-tat, in such a way that they wont have any reply to him. If you are smart in conversations, probably you can adopt that attitude…

 

[AlanFromWichita]

If we start with the basic assumption that they are not trying to hurt you, and I assume so since you are talking about close relatives, I highly recommend the book “The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense” by Suzette Haden Elgin (I do not recommend her other books and sequels)

Here is it at amazon. It might also be at your public library.

Anyway, the book sets a few ground rules about the “modes” of communication such as Blamer, Placater, Computer, etc. and discusses the strengths and weakness of each one. Then it examines 8 slightly different forms of verbal attack, and shows what the presuppositions are and how to respond to them rather than taking the “bait.”

Example: “If you really cared about me you’d stay home tonight.”

• Presupposition: “you don’t really care about me”
• Bait: staying home.
  If you take the bait, you have bought into the presupposition. “I HAVE to go out tonight” will get you hurt. Instead, attack the presupposition with preferably a “when” statement, and maybe in Computer mode: “How long have you wondered if I cared about you?”

What sort of things do they say? I’d be happy to help try to work a few examples.

Alan

 

[Student09]

I think it depends on what the comment is. “Very hurtful” could take quite a number of different forms that might call for different responses. Examples would be helpful?

Jesus sometimes responded gently, sometimes quite forcefully, and sometimes remained silent, depending on who was speaking to Him, what they said, etc. But since we are not God and our natural instinct is usually to respond with anger, we should err on the side of imitating Jesus in being meek and silent.