Taming The Tongue

Scripture

No one among mankind can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 

~James 3:8, NASB

Quote

“When words are multiplied beyond necessity, sin is seldom absent.”

~Charles Bridges

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James makes it clear that no one should be ambitious about teaching others. It is bad enough that we stumble but a bad teacher can cause others to stumble. Teachers are word smiths; generally they teach by what they say and they have incredible influence. As the rudder of the ship, they influence the direction of everyone on board. It is a sobering responsibility and one that I think of often. My goal is to be like John the Baptist. Of John it was said, “He never did a miracle but everything he said about Jesus is true.”

A pitfall for preachers and teachers is to become too critical, too judgmental and then in reaction to the injustice or sin we perceive in others, we become too harsh in our rebuke. We all say things that hurt other people, but preachers are prone to do this more often due to the nature of their job. Ignoring a problem is not the solution, but we must deal with them in Christian love. Jesus offended people when He spoke but He was speaking pure truth. Every thing I said last night was true but some of it was not necessary and that is the part that bothers me. I must learn to speak only what is necessary to convey the message. The extra is where I get in trouble.

Solomon said in Proverbs 10:19…“When words are multiplied beyond necessity, sin is seldom absent.” In other words the more we say, the more likely we are to sin is what we say. As preachers, teachers, and all Christians, we need not only  speak the right words, but also the right number of words. Sometimes the most God-honoring sentence is the one left unspoken. I need to work on that part of my sermon. We spend too much time preparing to speak and not enough preparing to be silent.

Sorry I am late again. Got in bed late and got up late. We got another rain 0.45 which gives us 2.09 for the week. Praise the LORD. Just two weeks ago I was dreading a long hot dry summer. Thank you LORD.

I hope you have a great day and thank you for reading the blog.

Mens Breakfast coming up Saturday week at the POINT. Saturday at 8:00 am.