“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

Can there be a less true statement?

In our Google world of instant communication, constant internet connections, incessant tweets, blogs, and IM’s, words create the only reality most people know. Words cannot only “hurt.” They can transform, destroy, recreate, panic, popularize, polarize, or annihilate any person, idea, cause, politics, reputation, or national debater.

Thankfully for those first century faith communities known now as the church, Jesus’ earliest disciples also did not buy the idea that words could not hurt them. They were acutely aware that false words could harm the mission and message of the gospel.

The composition of the four gospels largely proclaimed the particulars about Jesus’ earthly and he…