Railing and reviling

Recently this scripture in the Book of Mormon caught my attention.

"Some were lifted up in pride, and others were exceedingly humble; some did return railing for railing, while others would receive railing and ^apersecution and all manner of ^bafflictions, and would not turn and ^crevile again, but were humble and penitent before God."(3 Nephi 6:13). My understanding is that these were church members persecuting other church members. People who should have loved each other and been kind to each other.

This interested me so Camille (who likes expressive words) and I found definitions and synonyms for the words reviling and railing. Railing is to utter bitter complaint, it is an intense or emotional accusation, open condemnation, to rant, or to revile. Revile means: ridicule, mock, demean, verbally abuse, vilify, defame, belittle, insult or discredit.

We don't hear the words "revile" or "rail" much today so these synonyms helped me see more clearly how applicable these other words are in our lives. How often we hear put downs, mocking jokes, and complaining! Our natural response when they are directed at us is to get defense, hurt, angry or emotional and lash out at that person. Of course there are times to stand up for ourselves and the truth but the Lord has called peacemakers His children and has said that the meek will inherit the earth.

"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." (Matt 5:44)

"Bear (persecution) patiently and revile not against them." (D&C 98:23)

I think that the world would call us weak or spineless not to react and respond to those who would revile against us. It may look from the outside as a passive response but it really is an active one. It takes self-discipline to control our body and our tongue. It takes patience in the situation and forgiveness after. It takes charity to care about their feelings and not to want to hurt them even though they have caused us pain. That can be very difficult to do but the Lord will bless us and help us in our efforts.