Two images came to my mind as I read this passage. The first is my daughter who came home bawling from school as one of her classmates called her a “fat chicken”. Another image is a conversation I had with a vet several years ago. He looked down and out, and after discovering that he had PTSD, I talked with him to find out that most people ignored him, or called him crazy. It is pretty upsetting when your country awards someone the Purple Heart, and then people call you crazy.
Friends, we live in a society where people seem to enjoy putting others down. Whether it is in the halls of a school, or the workplace, a hospital, or even a family, at times we have to wrestle with self esteem because of what someone says or does. What a shame, especially considering we are all made in the image of God. So, what Paul encourages us to do is instead of tearing each other down, to build each other up. We do so through encouraging words as well as telling people how much they mean to us. We do so by remembering that the person we see on the street, or wherever, was created by God, and is in the image of God, just like we all are. Also, the enemy likes to tempt us to tear down fellow Christians by destructive comments. Fellow Christians, that is not who we are, so as my Mom used to say, “If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all.” Let us build each other up!