Talk Like a Christian
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How to Talk Like a Christian
Sunday, August 8, 2021 | Ephesians 4:25-5:2
They say talk is cheap. But the kind of talk Christ calls us to utter — kind, compassionate, caring discourse — is the rarest of commodities and the building block of true Christian conversation.
It’s a simple but reliable principle of human life: how people talk reveals a lot about who they are.
I used to translate American into “proper English” (and vice-versa) for a coworker years ago.
Lorry = truck
chemist’s = pharmacy
bonnet = hood
trainers = tennis shoes
Loo = restroom
motorway = freeway
lift = elevator
biscuit = cookie
crisps = potato chips
trousers = pants
pants = underwear
The way we talk can also reveal something about how committed we are to being Christian. It has nothing to do with accent, or vocabulary or grammar. It has everything to do with how we use this God-given gift of speech.
Do our words hurt, or do they heal? Do they work in service to truth or falsehood? Do our words build up, or do they tear down?
Such are the concerns we read about in Ephesians, chapters 4 and 5. It’s a collection of ethical advice and many of these instructions can help your congregation understand how Christians should talk to one another … and to others.
Quit Lying
Quit Lying
Let’s see what the Scriptures say:
25 So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth, for we are all parts of the same body.
Everybody knows that! We like to imagine ourselves as fundamentally trustworthy people.
But not so fast.
What about the infamous “little white lies” we tell, intended to not hurt another person’s feelings?
What about when the dental hygienist asks whether we really do floss twice a day?
What about the expenses we deduct on our tax returns?
Telling the truth isn’t always so straightforward and simple, is it?
Think about some examples of things we say or do that we quickly follow with explanations:
I'm only human.
Everybody does it.
I did what I had to do.
It’s only business.
If I don’t do it, somebody else will.
It’s a victimless crime.
I was only following orders.
Nobody’s perfect.
If we ever find ourselves advancing rationalizations such as these, we’re already in deep water. Speaking the truth, always and everywhere, is one of the most important ways to talk like a Christian. The only problem is, we fail that simple test almost every day.
5 A false witness will not go unpunished, nor will a liar escape.
Can any of us ever aspire to perfect truthfulness? It’s part and parcel of our sinful nature to bend the truth from time to time.
Maybe the best we can hope for in this life is that those little ethical alarms keep going off, so we can hear them and keep that goal of truthfulness ever before us.
Be Angry, But Do Not Sin
Be Angry, But Do Not Sin
Here’s something else chapter 4 says about how to talk like a Christian:
26 And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry,
Wow. That verse makes you sit up and take notice, doesn’t it? “Be angry but do not sin.” And this is the Bible speaking? Yes, that’s exactly what it says.
The reason that statement sounds so strange is that most of us have been taught that anger is always un-Christian and ought to be avoided. Many of us have been taught that the most important characteristic of a Christian is to be nice — to not make waves, to smile a lot, to be soft-spoken, and — truth be told — to be a doormat.
“Be angry but do not sin.” You’d almost think the Bible considers it normal for Christians to get angry!
Here’s a little secret, just between us. The Bible does consider it normal for Christians to get angry. Nowhere, in all the many ethical instructions Jesus gives to his disciples, will you find the command to be “nice” — in the way Ned Flanders is unfailingly nice. It’s a distortion of the New Testament to equate all anger with sin.
Even Jesus himself got angry. There are more than a few Bible passages where he does.
5 He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored!
Mark reports how Jesus gets angry at the Pharisees: “He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart.”
And why? Because the Pharisees have been objecting to Jesus’ plan to heal a man’s withered hand on the Sabbath.
An even better-known example is Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. He strides through the temple courtyard, overturning the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sell sacrificial doves. In Mark’s version of the story, Jesus cries out, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17). Them’s fightin’ words.
17 He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”
In John’s version of the story, Jesus is cracking a whip made of cords. Nothing especially nice about that!
The difference in both these cases — compared to the situations in which we typically feel our anger boiling over — lies in the reasons for the anger. Most of the time, when we find ourselves raising our voices and getting red in the face, it’s because we feel personally injured or abused in some way.
Somebody just squeezed into the parking place ahead of us.
A co-worker just fired off a flaming e-mail.
The person ahead of us in the express line has 16 items in the cart.
We feel injured, so we respond by getting angry.
Whenever the Bible speaks approvingly of anger, the object of the anger is not our own precious sense of injury, but rather injury or injustice inflicted on another person.
When Jesus gets mad at the Pharisees, it’s because that poor man with the withered hand may not get healed. When he swings that whip of cords in the temple courtyard, it’s on behalf of all the poor, devout pilgrims who are getting swindled by a corrupt system.
The letter to the Ephesians moves on to supply some practical advice on how to manage anger, righteous or otherwise.
26 And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry,
Don’t hang on to it obsessively. That’s good advice for a marriage, as well as a social reform movement.
Those who live their lives driven by anger eventually pay a bitter personal price, as Frederick Buechner points out in this oft-quoted passage from his book, Wishful Thinking:
“Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back — in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.” [Harper & Row, 1973, 2.]
Talk That Builds Up
Talk That Builds Up
Ephesians 4 says something else about how to talk like a Christian:
29 Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.
The translation “evil” — as in “evil talk” — is actually a cleaned-up version, compared to the original Greek. The word literally means something like “putrid,” as in rotting fish.
What sort of talk is worthy of that sort of description? You may think that this passage must be about profanity or obscenity. But if you read on, you’ll find the letter-writer has something very different in mind:
31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior.
It’s quite a list. “Bitterness” is a type of talk that keeps calling back to mind experiences of hurt or pain, some of which are better left alone. It’s possible to revel — or, should we say, grovel — in victimhood.
We’ve all known injured people who just can’t let it go. Some people go to their graves feeling bitter for the way their parents or their spouses or their children failed them.
Or, they castigate themselves for some missed opportunity decades in the past.
Bitter talk, when it continues for a very long time without let-up, causes terrible emotional harm to the speaker — not to mention misery for everyone who has to listen to their complaints.
Next on the list are “wrath” and “anger”: words that are pretty much synonymous.
Then comes the word “wranglings.” It’s a creative translation of a Greek word that literally means “shoutings” or “raucous outbursts.” If there is a place for anger in the Christian life — and surely there is, if it’s anger about injustice perpetrated upon the weak or innocent — it’s got to be anger of a more focused, disciplined nature if it’s going to accomplish anything over the long haul.
Next comes the word “slander.” The Greek is blasphemia, which you may recognize as our English word, “blasphemy.” Usually, we think of blasphemy as taking the Lord’s name in vain, but in the original Greek it means slanderous, gossipy remarks of any kind.
Another Greek word for “slanderer” is the word diabolos, which you may recognize as the root of “diabolical” (meaning “devilish”). It actually occurs earlier in this passage where it talks about not letting the sun go down on our anger. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger,” it says, “and do not make room for the devil” (vv. 26-27). Literally, it’s “do not make room for the slanderer.” You may have heard Satan, or the devil, referred to as “the father of lies,” and that’s exactly what this word means. To slander another person is to serve a diabolical purpose.
Scottish Bible scholar William Barclay’s description of slander is pure poetry: “There are reputations murdered over the teacups every day.” Gossiping over bone-china teacups is a very British image. But you can substitute cardboard cups of Starbucks coffee if you wish. The tendency is universal. There’s a part of us that just loves to pass on that juicy bit of gossip, regardless of whether we know it to be true.
We have whole new dimensions for doing this today through social media. The speed with which a slanderous remark can make the rounds these days is breathtaking. And some of those “urban legends” never seem to die.
The final word on the list is “malice,” or hateful feelings. We’ve seen the damage such feelings can do by people with weapons in their hands. From the bad boys and girls of talk radio to the neighbor who perpetuates a feud with another neighbor, malice can kill.
Be Kind
Be Kind
The antithesis of all this is found in another list in Ephesians:
32 Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.
Paul makes it as simple as a choice.
Now that’s the sort of talk Christians should truly engage in! Positive, upbuilding talk is a counterweight to the anger, slander and all the rest.
It’s the “Thou shalt” to balance off the “Thou shalt nots” of the previous verses. Kindness, tenderheartedness (literally, compassion), forgiveness: such are the building blocks of true Christian conversation.
This is not weakness. It’s not cloying niceness. It’s not being a doormat. Rather, filling our mouths with positive, affirming talk is a strong and grateful response to the forgiveness and grace we have ourselves received from Jesus Christ.
They say talk is cheap. Not this kind of talk, though. Kind, compassionate, caring discourse is the rarest of commodities amidst the sound and fury of soul-destroying hate speech all around us. It’s the type of speech Christ calls us to utter. It’s how to talk like a Christian.
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