The Power of Our Words to Shape our Lives

Scripture: (NIV)

1 Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. 3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

Some of us may be more familiar with having our foot in our mouths than others. It is an experience we all can attest to. We may be in a social situation that makes us feel uncomfortable, and to compensate for our discomfort, feeling the need to say something, anything, words blurt out of our mouths that immediately make us think, “Now why did I say that?” We might say something like, “You look great for your age.” “To which the person might reply, so, how old do you think I am?” Open mouth, insert foot. In trying to keep the conversation going and wanting to say something nice to the other person, we inadvertently insult them. This new relationship is off to a fabulous start!

It’s difficult to tame the tongue

Some of us may be more familiar with having our foot in our mouths than others. It is an experience we all can attest to. We may be in a social situation that makes us feel uncomfortable, and to compensate for our discomfort, feeling the need to say something, anything, words blurt out of our mouths that immediately make us think, “Now why did I say that?” We might say something like, “You look great for your age.” “To which the person might reply, so, how old do you think I am?” Open mouth, insert foot. In trying to keep the conversation going and wanting to say something nice to the other person, we inadvertently insult them. This new relationship is off to a fabulous start!

Or, we might be going along perfectly peacefully, when one or more of our children begin doing something completely incomprehensible and inappropriate. We might snap at them in anger and alarm, causing them to feel more frightened of us than is warranted, the words we say coming out more harshly than we would have wanted had we had a chance to take a breath and think about it.

In trying to keep the conversation going and wanting to say something nice to the other person, we inadvertently insult them. This new relationship is off to a fabulous start!

God cares about our words.

- We will be judged by them. - Teachers judged more strictly, but all judged. - (NIV). 36 But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Words are powerful.

This is true even as we move much of our communication from face to face speech to written forms such as email and social media. Even with the added steps of needing to write that 140 character tweet, and then pressing publish, we still can communicate things online, in social media, in our emails, that are more reactive and less thought out, the unfiltered content of our immediate state of mind than the things we would think if we took more time to actually think.

- Our mouths are the steering wheels of our bodies. - Set things a blaze.

Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. (v. 5).

- Can produce life and death. - (NIV). 21 The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. - . "And God said," six times in creation and the whole world came to be. - Words are so powerful that Jesus himself, the divine son of God, has a nickname: The Word.

Careless, reactive words are destructive.

The result is messy. People get hurt. Feelings get hurt. Reputations get ruined. Even jobs can get lost.

- Gossip. - Gossip is the casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details which are not confirmed as true. [Oxford Dictionary] - One version tells that a woman spreads untruths about a neighbor in her village. When she wants to make amends, she approaches an elder in the community, tells him how sorry she is, and asks what she can do to apologize. He brings her to the top of a hill on a windy day with a pillowcase full of feathers. He instructs her to open the pillowcase, and the feathers fly everywhere. He then asks her to collect the far-flung feathers. She protests, saying that it is impossible to track down each feather. He responds that so too is it impossible to undo the damage that gossip causes, for each piece of gossip told catches the wind and travels far, just like the feathers.

You can ruin people’s reputation, which can have a major effect on their lives.

- Social media. “A former colleague of mine posted about how he was going to use up all his sick leave then quit. He posted it at 9 a.m., and was told he didn’t have a job at 11 a.m.” (https://people.com/celebrity/employees-who-were-fired-because-of-social-media-posts/) - Think before you post. Try to understand something as best you can in the time you have before weighing in on it. Do not post social media or send emails reactively. Post Responsively. This usually involves exploring multiple perspectives. - Especially if it is about another person. (NIV) 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

- The Glorification of the quick response.

- First take, ESPN. Stephen A. Smith.

- The news cycle.

“The way that news is presented and the way that we access news has changed significantly over the last 15 to 20 years,” says Graham Davey, a professor emeritus of psychology at Sussex University in the UK and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Experimental Psychopathology. “These changes have often been detrimental to general mental health.”

Davey says today’s news is “increasingly visual and shocking,”

More than half of Americans say the news causes them stress, and many report feeling anxiety, fatigue or sleep loss as a result, the survey shows. Yet one in 10 adults checks the news every hour, and fully 20% of Americans report “constantly” monitoring their social media feeds

Courtesy of Reddit.com: “A former colleague of mine posted about how he was going to use up all his sick leave then quit. He posted it at 9 a.m., and was told he didn’t have a job at 11 a.m.” (https://people.com/celebrity/employees-who-were-fired-because-of-social-media-posts/)

Steer your life positively with your words.

(NIV)

- Speak the word of God over yourself. - Claim his promises in Scripture. Remind yourself and the spirit realm of the reality of God's word. - Speak God's truth over other people. This can have a powerful encouraging effect. You can literally change someone's life. - Your best communication body part is not your mouth but your ears. Listen more than you speak. Go out of your way to hear people's perspectives that are different from yours. Seek out people who disagree with you and converse with them, not to win an argument or to get them to hear your viewpoint, but to thoroughly hear and understand their viewpoint. Then you will be a person of greater understanding and will have a greater basis to form your own judgments.

21 The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.