Finding out when someone or a group of people have said something bad about us can incredibly disheartening.  

I have fallen into this trap before myself, where I have read something somewhere on social media about me, or even seen someone like a comment that trashes me, and my first reaction was, I need to cut that person off, I’ll never speak or engage with that person ever again.  They are dead to me!  

If you’ve ever felt like I have when finding someone is bashing you, today’s verse puts those knee jerk responses in check: 

Ecc 7:21  Also, do not take seriously all words which are spoken, so that you will not hear your servant cursing you.

Contextually, back then a servant was like a member of the family.  Servants were very close with the heads of the households, so today’s verse suggests that even those closest to us will curse us at one point or another.  

More importantly, we shouldn’t take these little biting comments seriously either.  After all, we are only human, chances are we too have said something just as bad.  

As Jesus said, let He who is without sin cast the first stone.  If Christ can forgive us for our endless sinning, surely we can forgive someone else who talked smack about us, when in fact, we have probably done the same thing, maybe not to that specific person, but likely to someone else.

Moral of the story…don’t take backbiting personally, because everyone has done it at one point or another, including us!  Forgive and forget, like God has forgiven us.