The first Principle of Loving Someone

Just like a doctor trying to build up the health of his patient, if we are trying to build up a relationship, the first rule is, do no harm! We must make sure we are not doing the things that tear a relationship down.

That’s the focus of the very first sentence of our biblical passage:

Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.

Key #1: Stop the Corrupt and Disrespectful Words!

Corrupt words are words that tear down rather than edify or build up. They are words that explicitly or implicitly attack the personhood of an individual. The fastest way to knock a relationship totally off-track is by words that communicate dishonor and disrespect for that person.

This is an issue that has everything to do with the principal of “do no harm.”

Angry Words Stir up More Angry Words 
Whenever any of us feels attacked, our first concern is usually to defend ourselves. And I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “the best defense is a good offense.” So, if my relationship partner feels I have verbally attacked him or her, I should expect an immediate verbal counterattack. The Bible puts it this way: 
Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

So now we go into a downwards spiral of anger… My angry words toward that person provoke a response of angry words back at me, which in turn stirs up more of my anger right back at them. And it just spirals down, and down.

Eventually that dispute will probably run out of gas. We’ve said all the nasty and hurtful things we can say to one another, and eventually we get to the point of… “Whatever.” You may think the argument is all over. But not really. Look at the words the Bible says are associated with anger:

Ephesians 4:31 Let all BITTERNESS, WRATH, anger, CLAMOR, AND EVIL SPEAKING be put away from you, with all MALICE. 
By my put-down words, I have injected bitterness, wrath, evil speaking, and malice into the relationship. All those things are like a time-released medicine capsule. They may not show their effect immediately, but over time they can permeate a relationship with the poison of ill will, mistrust, or indifference. 
Disrespectful and Dishonoring Words Have a 
Powerful Impact

The moment you start communicating disrespect to another person, the relationships stops in its tracks.

Whatever else may have been going on in the relationship up to that point becomes, for the moment at least, irrelevant. The total focus now shifts to the disrespectful words, actions, and attitudes you have expressed toward that person. Here’s an example of what I mean: 
Some time ago, I got out of bed, put my feet on the floor, and ouch! There was a sewing needle stuck in my foot. I have no idea how that needle came to be on the floor of our bedroom. But here’s the thing: as long as that needle was in my foot, I didn’t care about anything else. You could talk to me about my job, about breakfast, about my car, even about financial issues… I wasn’t listening! Until that needle was removed from my foot, I wasn’t attending to anything else.

That’s the way it is when we speak critical, disdainful, disrespectful, and accusatory words of disapproval toward another person. Once you start putting that person down with your words and with your attitude, they will care about nothing else but responding to your attack on their personhood.

If I and my wife were having a discussion about where to go for dinner, and I said something, or displayed an attitude, that implied she was stupid or selfish for wanting to go to the restaurant she suggested, that would be like a needle in the foot.

From that moment, the discussion would no longer be about where to go for dinner. The discussion would be about my words and my attitude that have attacked who my wife is as a person. Now, until that issue is resolved, she will have no ability to pay attention to anything else I might say.

Corrupt Words Can Kill a Relationship 
Anytime I say something that communicates disrespect for who an individual is as a person, that is a “corrupt word.”

Anytime I start a sentence with, “you are so…” and the rest is something negative, I am in great danger of speaking corrupt words that will tear down rather than build up the relationship.

Anytime I start a statement with, “you always…” or “you never…” and the rest of the sentence is something negative, I’m on thin ice. 
The first rule of building a relationship is: DO NO HARM! And the easiest way to do sometimes irreversible harm to a relationship is with negative, critical, disrespectful, and dishonoring words.

Now that we know what not to do, let’s turn to what we should do.

Key #2: Build the Relationship With Positive Words of Grace

Ephesians 4:31-32 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

Even when someone has said or done something that deeply hurts or offends me, I can’t afford to respond with angry, bitter, and disrespectful words. Instead, the Bible commands me to put away all my words of bitterness, wrath, and anger, and replace them with words that are kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving.

Kindness 
The interesting thing about speaking kind words is that they are not necessarily deserved.

If you work a 40 hour week and I give you a paycheck for 40 hours of work, I’m not being kind. You earned that paycheck! But if I give you money you never worked for, just because I know you need it, that’s being kind.

So, if I limit my positive and approving words to only what I think you’ve earned or deserve, those are not words of kindness, and they don’t fulfill the Bible’s command.