Training Your Tongue for Life-Giving Communication

REFLECTION QUOTES

“Speech has power. Words do not fade. What starts out as a sound, ends in a deed.”

~Abraham Joshua Herschel (1907-1972), famed rabbi and theologian

“In the beginning was the Word…”

~The Gospel according to John 1:1

“Talking is the most dangerous thing people do…, and listening is the most infrequent thing people do, especially when they are stressed.”

~Harville Hendrix, couples therapist, on the relational impact of COVID-19

“I do believe that words…go into the body, as effect. So, they cause us to be well and hopeful and high energy and wondrous and funny and cheerful. Or they…get into the body and cause us to be sullen and sour and depressed and, finally sick.”

~ Maya Angelou (1928-2014), American poet and civil rights activist

“I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.”

~John Calvin (1509-1564), theologian, pastor and reformer in Geneva

“Words are not in the power of men; men are in the power of words.”

~Hermann Bahr (1863-1934), Austrian writer, director and critic

“The central reality for Christians is the personal, unalterable, persevering commitment God makes to us. Perseverance is not the result of our determination; it is the result of God’s faithfulness. We survive in the way of faith not because we have extraordinary stamina but because God is righteous, because God sticks with us.”

~Eugene Peterson (1932-2018), American minister and author

SERMON PASSAGE

Ephesians 4:25-32; James 3:2, 6-12 (ESV)

Ephesians 4

25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

James 3

6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.