Taming Your Tongue and Fine-tuning Your Ears

We're surrounded by negativity in our world today. It's on the news, at the workplace, on emails we receive, in the utterances of politicians, in newspapers and magazines, on radio and television, and in general conversations at home and in the marketplace. There is great power in the words we say. In fact, the Bible says, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruits thereof" (Proverbs 18:21). As you know, some of those fruits are bitter, and they can be very destructive in people's lives.

I remember overhearing something a fellow-teacher I worked with at an elementary school said. She thrust the results of a standardized test in the face of one of our students and hatefully uttered these stinging and condemning words, "See, Richard, this proves it. You are stupid!" I wonder if Richard still experiences the biting condemnation of those words now, some thirty years later.

What does the Bible have to say about the way in which we should use our tongues?

• We should not engage in flattery. "The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things" (Psalms 12:3).
• We should keep our tongue from evil (including every negative comment): "For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile" (1 Peter 3:10).
• How we use our tongues plays a role in our health. "There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health" (Proverbs 12:18).
• A wholesome tongue is a tree of life. "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life; but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit" (Proverbs 15:4).

The Scriptures abound with references to the use of our tongues and with warnings about misusing them. The following usages are condemned unequivocally: backbiting, lying, slandering, using a multitude of words, deceitfulness, speaking guile, flattery, hypocrisy, swearing, taking God's name in vain, etc.

Instead, we are enjoined to speak the truth in love, tame our tongues, ask God to put a watch before our lips, to rejoice evermore, to use our tongues to tell others about Jesus, to pray, and to praise the Lord.

Clearly, the way we use our tongues is a serious business, indeed. Do we use our tongues to build others up or to tear them down? To give glory to God or to glorify ourselves? To encourage others or to discourage them? To plant positive or negative seeds? Do we use our tongues as tools of blessing or criticism?

We also need to be careful about what we listen to. What goes into the ear, finds its way to the heart, and what goes into the heart, comes out in one's life. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."

Do you remember the children's chorus: "Be careful, little ears, what you hear? The Father up above is looking down in love, so be careful, little ears, what you hear"?

As adults, we need to reflect on these truths, as well. In the mid-eighteenth century a group of Methodist men, including John Wesley, signed the following covenant (which Bob Gass writes about in the Bridge-Logos devotional, entitled Best of the Word for Today):

• That we will not listen to, or willingly inquire after ill concerning one another
• That if we do hear any ill of each other, we will not believe it
• That as soon as possible, we will communicate what we hear by speaking or writing to the person concerned
• That until we have done this, we will not write or speak a syllable of it to any other person
• That neither will we mention it after we have done this, to any other person
• That we will not make any exception to any of these rules, unless we think ourselves absolutely obliged, and then only in conference.

We would be well-advised to post these commitments in a prominent place in order to remind ourselves to "speak no evil, hear not evil, and see no evil." Certainly these rules are important ones to follow at home, at work, in church, and in every group in which we participate.

"But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ" (Ephesians 4:15).

"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer" (Psalm 19:14).