At mealtime a parent may comfortably give their toddler a spoon, but never a knife. Eventually the child’s place setting will include one, but not until there is the maturity and self-control to safely employ its use. Perhaps this restrictive image is one we should recall when we consider God’s warning that “rash words are like…
Every arena of life has its own vocabulary, whether we are talking to teammates in a sport’s league or to coworkers in our profession. Christianity is no different. Some of our specialized Christian vocabulary can be helpful, providing us with a kind of verbal shorthand for more efficient communication. But it is time we realize…
If you knew that you had to engage in a street fight with someone today, you’d prepare. Not wanting to fight wouldn’t help if the fight were inevitable. Ignoring the fight would only ensure your loss. The Bible says that you are in a daily battle for the control of your words. Scripture warns that your
God’s word commands followers of Christ to “not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths” (Eph.4:29). Often the Bible gauges our spirituality by our vocabulary (Jms.3:2-12). If our words are unsavory Jesus provides the needed…
The Bible says that if you can control what you say, everything else is a snap (cf. Jms.3:2). When it comes to our fallen humanity, nothing is more depraved than our mouths. The Bible says that our tongue is “a fire” and “a world of evil among the parts of the body” (Jms.3:6a). God says…
Nothing may be more difficult in the Christian life than avoiding sin in the things that we say. James diagnoses the tongue as a “restless evil, full of deadly poison” (3:8). We experience plenty of circumstances and emotions every day that can easily set off a powder keg of demeaning and destructive words. And while we can’t control many of the
When reading through Proverbs one can’t help but perceive a handful of predominant and recurring themes. One of the most persistent sets of exhortations relates to our chronic tendency to say too much. Over one hundred seventy inspired proverbs seek to impress on our hearts that fools are “babblers” and the wicked are “rash” with their words, but the wise “restrain their tongues”. We are warned in dozens of ways that “When words are many, transgression is not lacking” (Proverbs 10:19).
Closeness with God is more than being saved, it is a relational intimacy that grows as we learn to love and increasingly practice what is good, right and holy.
God tells us our words have huge consequences for good and for evil; therefore we must purposefully manage our hearts and mouths as new creations in Christ.
