The words that we speak to ourselves and to others are very important. The Bible has a lot to say about the power of the tongue and the words that we speak. Two Proverbs we will focus our attention on today tell us about this. First of all, Proverbs 10:19 states, "When there are many words, wrongdoing is unavoidable. But one who restrains his lips is wise." Proverbs 18:2 lets us know that, "The tongue has the power of life and death..."
Let us look at the first Proverb for a moment. This one deals with speaking a lot of things. It lets us know that those who just keep talking and talking will get into a lot of trouble because they will eventually end up saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, or they will say the wrong thing at the wrong time. This Proverb instructs us to watch what we say. We don't have to speak an opinion about everything and everybody. Guarding our tongue can keep us out of a lot of trouble, and it can keep people from getting their feelings hurt or becoming angry with us. We all need to become wiser about saying the right things in the right way at the right time.
The second Proverb is about hurting or helping with what we say. On this blog on other occasions, I've written about speaking words that heal and not words that hurt. Hurtful things that are said to or about us can have a negative effect that can last for decades.
When we recently went through our series on the book of James, we saw that James devoted a large section of his letter to controlling the tongue. As those who follow the Lord Jesus, we need to speak words of love, encouragement and hope.
As in all things, we need to look to Jesus when we think about what to say. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us to let our yes be yes and our no be no. That means that we must always be truthful in what we say. We must always be loving like Jesus and remember the words of Jesus that we do to others as we would have done to us.
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