What the Bible Says About Calling Someone a Fool – Matt 5

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

What a complete and utter lie.

We all know the feeling. That verbal punch to the gut. A careless insult, a dismissive name, a label that sticks around long after the sound is gone. Words have real power. They can build people up or tear them down with terrifying speed. As a guy, I was always told to have a thick skin, to just brush things off. But I can still feel the sting of a coach calling me a “fool” after a blown play in a high school football game. The heat rushed to my face. I felt completely diminished in front of my teammates. The words didn’t break any bones, no. But they did a number on my spirit.

This is exactly why God takes our words so seriously. He knows their power. And you see it nowhere more clearly than in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus gives a teaching that should make every single one of us pause. He gets right under the skin of the sin of murder and exposes the anger festering in our hearts. In doing so, He gives a stark warning about a simple insult. Figuring out what the Bible says about calling someone a fool isn’t just for Bible scholars; it’s a raw look into God’s heart and a real-world guide for how we should live.

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Key Takeaways

• Jesus’s point in Matthew 5:22 isn’t to ban certain words, but to condemn the murderous anger and contempt that fuel them.
• The Greek word for “fool,” mōros, goes way beyond calling someone dumb. It’s a damning spiritual judgment that labels a person as morally worthless and godless.
• The punishments Jesus lists—judgment, the council, and hell fire—get more severe as the contempt behind the words gets uglier.
• There’s a huge difference between calling someone a “fool” from a place of personal, angry contempt (which Jesus forbids) and identifying foolish actions or beliefs to bring righteous correction (which Jesus and the apostles did).
• Jesus ties our words about others directly to our worship of God. He makes it clear that getting right with people has to come before we can truly get right with Him.

Have You Ever Wondered Why Jesus Took a Simple Insult So Seriously?

To feel the full impact of Jesus’s words, you have to see the scene. He isn’t lecturing a few religious scholars in a stuffy room. He’s on a mountainside, talking to crowds of ordinary people—fishermen, farmers, parents, outcasts. He’s laying out the Sermon on the Mount, a radical blueprint for a new way of life in His Kingdom.

Throughout the sermon, He keeps taking the established law—the Ten Commandments, the whole deal—and pushing it deeper. He’s not getting rid of it; He’s showing what it was always supposed to be about, right down to the level of the heart.

He kicks off with a huge one: murder. In Matthew 5:21, He says, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’” Everyone listening would have been on board. Easy enough. Don’t murder people. Check.

But then Jesus flips the script. The very next verse hits like a thunderclap: “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

Just like that, the game changed. The standard is now impossibly high. Jesus is saying the seed of anger in your heart is cut from the same cloth as the act of murder. The rage that makes one person pick up a rock is present in the person who just stews in silence. Then, He shows how that inner poison seeps out: through insults. And He attaches terrifying price tags to them.

But What Did Jesus Actually Mean by “Raca” and “Fool”?

Reading this in English, “insults” and “fool” can sound pretty tame. But Jesus was speaking in a specific context, using words that hit much harder. For the crowd on that hill, these weren’t playground taunts. They were verbal knives.

Was “Raca” Just an Ancient Cuss Word?

The first term, “Raca,” is pure contempt. It basically means “empty-headed” or “you nobody.” It’s more than calling someone stupid; it’s a total dismissal of their humanity and value. It’s looking at another person, someone made in God’s image, and writing them off as an empty shell.

Think about that. It’s an insult designed not to correct, but to crush. And Jesus says this kind of talk makes you “liable to the council,” the Sanhedrin, the supreme court of the Jews. He’s using legal language to show that a verbal assault born of such contempt is a high crime in God’s kingdom. To viciously dismiss a person’s God-given worth is a matter for the highest court.

Why is Calling Someone a “Fool” a Ticket to Hell Fire?

This is where things get even heavier. The word Jesus uses for “fool” is the Greek mōros. We get our word “moron” from it, but the original meaning is far darker.

Mōros isn’t about intelligence. It’s about being morally and spiritually bankrupt.

In the Old Testament, especially Psalms and Proverbs, the “fool” is the one who “says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1). A fool is someone who rejects wisdom, scoffs at what is right, and walks a path toward destruction. To call someone mōros was to judge their very soul. It was saying, “You are a godless degenerate. You are wicked, and you are going to hell.”

It’s a verbal damnation.

That’s why the consequence is so final: “the hell of fire.” The word is Gehenna, the name of the burning trash heap outside Jerusalem that became a symbol for eternal judgment. Jesus is saying that when you arrogantly stand over someone and condemn their soul with that kind of curse, you put your own soul in danger of the exact same fate.

So, Is It the Word Itself or the Heart Behind It?

Here we are at the absolute heart of the issue. Jesus isn’t just giving us a new list of bad words. If that were the case, we’d just find new ways to say the same thing. The problem isn’t the syllables we form with our mouths. The problem is the murderous rage in our hearts that spits them out.

The sin begins long before a word is spoken. It starts with anger, bitterness, and resentment that we let take root. It’s the moment we dehumanize someone in our thoughts, reducing them from a person loved by God to a simple obstacle.

I remember helping a friend move a few years ago. We were trying to get a huge, heavy oak dresser down a tight stairwell. He was on the bottom, I was on top. My hand slipped for a split second, and the corner of the dresser scraped a long gash in the drywall. He just sighed and snapped, “You fool, watch what you’re doing!”

Now, did he think I was a godless reprobate headed for Gehenna? No. It was a stressful moment, and he was frustrated. But in that instant, the word was a weapon fired by anger. It wasn’t helpful. It was a verbal jab to place blame and show his disgust. And it stung. The problem wasn’t the word “fool”; it was the contemptuous spirit behind it. That’s what Jesus is getting at. He’s targeting the heart that wants to wound and condemn.

Does This Mean We Can Never Call Out Actual Foolishness?

This is a critical question. If calling someone a fool is so spiritually dangerous, what do we do when people are genuinely acting foolishly or spreading destructive ideas? The Bible itself seems to use this kind of language.

How Did Jesus and the Apostles Talk About Fools?

Context is everything. Later on, Jesus Himself looks at the Pharisees and calls them “You blind fools!” (Matthew 23:17). The Apostle Paul, writing to a church that was falling for a false gospel, cries out, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” (Galatians 3:1).

Are they breaking their own rules? Not at all. There is a universe of difference between an insult hurled in personal anger and a sharp word used with divine authority to expose dangerous error.

When Jesus called the Pharisees “fools,” it wasn’t a petty name-calling session. It was a divine diagnosis of their spiritual sickness. They were teaching that the gold in the temple was more important than the temple itself—a spiritually blind and foolish idea. Jesus’s rebuke was a judicial statement meant to correct a lie that was leading people astray. It was a pastoral act, not a personal one. Paul’s cry was the same, born out of a desperate love for a church walking away from the truth.

What’s the Difference Between a Foolish Act and Being a “Fool”?

We have to make this same distinction. My son, when he was little, thought it would be a great idea to test if a toy car could float in the toilet. That was a foolish act. But I didn’t condemn his character. I corrected his behavior. “Hey buddy, we don’t put toys in the toilet. That was a foolish thing to do because it can break things and ruin your toy.”

See the difference? I addressed the action, not his identity. The goal was to teach, not to condemn. Jesus’s warning is about when we take someone’s foolish mistake—or anything that makes us mad—and use it as a weapon to condemn their entire being as a worthless, godless mōros. One is discipline. The other is damnation.

What Does the Book of Proverbs Add to This Conversation?

For a masterclass on foolishness, go to the book of Proverbs. It doesn’t just mention fools; it paints a detailed, consistent portrait of one. Reading it makes Jesus’s warning even more powerful. The fool in Proverbs isn’t a simpleton; he’s a rebel.

This person isn’t defined by a low IQ but by a hard heart. When you see the profile Proverbs builds, you understand why labeling someone a “fool” is so serious. You’re aligning them with a specific, destructive kind of spiritual rebellion.

• A fool hates wisdom. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7). Their main problem is they reject God’s truth.
• A fool trusts himself. “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered” (Proverbs 28:26). They are their own god.
• A fool starts fights. “A fool’s lips walk into a fight, and his mouth calls for a beating” (Proverbs 18:6). Their words create chaos.
• A fool rejects correction. “A fool despises his father’s instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is prudent” (Proverbs 15:5). You can’t teach them because they already know everything.

This isn’t just a random list; it’s a profile of someone whose entire life is pointed away from God. To slap that label on someone out of personal anger is to play God, to claim the authority to judge their soul.

How Can We Guard Our Tongues When We’re Angry?

Let’s be real: this is hard. When we’re hurt or frustrated, the first instinct is often to strike back with words. James called the tongue a restless evil, a fire capable of burning down a whole forest (James 3:5-6). And Jesus said it best: “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). Our words just reveal what’s already in our hearts.

Why Is This So Hard for Us?

It’s hard because it forces us to deal with the real problem: the anger and contempt inside. It’s way easier to police our words than to purify our hearts. It’s simple to say, “Okay, I won’t say ‘fool’.” It’s the work of a lifetime, with the Spirit’s help, to get to where you don’t even feel that condemning contempt in the first place.

I learned this the hard way at work once. In a team meeting, a coworker threw me under the bus, unfairly blaming me for a project delay. I was humiliated. I was furious. I went back to my desk and started drafting a scathing email to set the record straight and expose his own incompetence—his own foolishness. I wanted to obliterate him with words.

But by God’s grace, I stopped. I remembered this teaching. I closed my laptop and took a walk. I prayed. I let the rage cool down. Later that afternoon, I went to him privately, calmly explained the facts, and asked him to correct the record. Because I hadn’t torched the relationship with an angry email, he could actually hear me. He apologized to me and then to the team. A relationship was saved instead of being destroyed.

What Are Some Practical Steps We Can Take?

Guarding our hearts and tongues is a constant battle. It takes being intentional and depending on God. Here’s what helps me:

• Hit the pause button. When you feel that surge of anger, force yourself to wait. Five minutes before you answer that text. An hour before you reply to that email. A whole day before you have that confrontation. Time is your best friend when you’re angry.
• Pray for your enemy. It sounds crazy and feels impossible, but it works. It is incredibly difficult to hold contempt for someone you are actively asking God to bless. It changes your perspective and reminds you that they are also made in God’s image.
• Attack the problem, not the person. Instead of “You’re an idiot for doing that,” try, “This caused a problem. How can we fix it?” Focus your energy on the solution, not character assassination.
• Dig deeper into your anger. Ask yourself: why am I really this mad? Is it just what happened, or did it poke at my pride? My insecurity? My fear? The biggest explosions often come from the deepest wounds.

Is There a Connection Between Our Words and Our Worship?

Jesus doesn’t just drop this heavy teaching about insults and walk away. He immediately connects it to the most sacred thing a Jewish person could do: worshipping at the temple.

He says in Matthew 5:23-24, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

That is a bombshell. Jesus is saying your relationships with people are completely tied to your relationship with God. You can’t be right with God if you’re okay with being wrong with people. The contempt that fuels calling someone a “fool” builds a wall between you and God. He isn’t interested in our worship songs or our offerings if our hearts are full of rage and our relationships are a mess.

He says to leave your gift at the altar. That’s insane. Reconciliation is so urgent, so important, that it has to happen before worship can. We have to chase peace with others before we can find peace with God. As scholars writing for resources like the Princeton Theological Review have noted, worship was a deeply communal act; private devotion that didn’t lead to public integrity was seen as hollow.

Our Words Are a Matter of Life and Death

In the end, what the Bible says about calling someone a fool is a challenge to look in the mirror. It’s a call to see other people not as annoyances or idiots, but as souls made and loved by the same God who made and loves us.

“Raca” and “mōros” aren’t just old-fashioned insults. They are signs of a deadly heart condition—a heart that wants to sit on God’s throne and be the judge. They reveal a spirit of contempt that, if we let it grow, is every bit as spiritually deadly as murder.

Our words can give life, or they can deal death. They can be a healing balm or a deadly weapon. Jesus’s command isn’t a new rule for our vocabulary. It’s a desperate, loving plea for us to become people whose words reflect the incredible grace we’ve been shown—people who build up, who seek peace, and whose speech is seasoned with the same mercy God has poured out on us.

It’s an impossible calling. But it is the beautiful, life-giving way of Jesus.

FAQ – What the Bible Says About Calling Someone a Fool