An unbridled tongue has the ability to result in great interpersonal difficulties.
By Jill Briscoe
There is so much we can do with our tongues for good or for evil. Jesus said, “Whatever is in your heart determines what you say. A good person produces good words from a good heart, and an evil person produces evil words from an evil heart” (Matthew 12:34-35).
I think all of us at some time or other have wished we could cut out our untamed tongue! A friend shared one of those moments with me. She belonged to a small church in England way out in the country. The parishioners had problems attracting visitors. They would try this and that, but nothing seemed to work. Then one day to their delight, some visitors came. There were just three of them, two women and a small child.
The fellowship my friend belonged to did not have a minister of its own as it was not large enough to support a preacher, so they had ‘pulpit supply’ each week. This particular day, the preacher was awful! My friend felt excited about the newcomers but watched them looking around and fidgeting. She said to herself, “Why did they have to come this week?” As soon as the service was over, she rushed up to them and said, “I’m so glad you’re here. We just love having visitors, but I just want to apologise for the guest speaker. They’re not usually quite so boring!” One of the women smiled a tight smile and replied, “That’s my husband, and this is his sister.” My friend’s mouth dropped open, and she mumbled, “Oh dear, I’m so sorry.” And the lady said bitingly, “I’m not!” And that was that. Many of us have had a problem with “foot-in-mouth disease” to a lesser or greater degree. James tells us that genuine religion should and must affect the tongue.
We have just enjoyed a visit with two of our twelve grandchildren. As a proud grandma, I think the six-year-old is a perfect six-year old, and the four-year-old a perfect four-year-old. They are “perfect” for the stage where they are. Being a Christian means that our speech will reflect our spiritual maturity. Even a six-year-old can control his tongue. You might not think so, but in my experience a six-year-old who is told not to say a naughty word has the ability to avoid saying it.
Paul, writing to the Corinthians, said, “When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child . . . When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me” (1 Corinthians 13:11). He was saying in essence, “One day I grew up.” Unfortunately, there is a childishness about some Christians. They are still talking like little kids. They may have been Christians for years and years, but they have never grown up spiritually. You can tell that because they cannot control their tongues.
We have in us an innate propensity to use our tongues to speak evil because we are evil at heart. Even though Christ has through grace brought His nature into our lives, our old sinful nature gets out of control sometimes and predominates. Therefore, we need to ration our words.
“With the tongue we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God” says James 3:9. Impure language takes many forms. One of the forms is gossip – the needless repetition of someone’s real or imaginary faults or intimate details of his or her life. Somebody says, “Don’t carry this any further; it needs to be confidential.” But you do carry it further – often to the very next person you meet. “A gossip goes about telling secrets, but one who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a confidence” (Proverbs 11:13). What we all need to do is to be trustworthy and to say, “I’ll find something nice to say or I won’t say anything at all.” Gossip so often causes the innocent to suffer and the forgiven to wonder if they really have been forgiven. Because gossip has to do with malice or retaliation, it gets under our skin.
If you are the victim of a malicious tongue – it is not your tongue that has been causing the trouble – what do you do then? Well, the Apostle Paul had been on the receiving end of gossip, insults, and false accusations, but he was able to say to the church in Corinth. “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court: indeed, I do not even judge myself . . . It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Corinthians 4:3-4). He does not say that he is innocent of any wrongdoing, but that human judgment is fallible, so he is not going to let people’s criticism get to him.
When I am criticised, I find it helps if I consider the source. Sometimes my critics have an axe to grind. Perhaps they are going through something really difficult themselves, and I just happened along at the wrong moment. Paul said, “I don’t worry over what you think about this (whether he was a good servant of God)” (1 Corinthians 4:3). It all depends who the you is. In Paul’s case, he considered the source and realised he was being attacked my jealous and hostile people who were caught firmly in the mouth trap. Paul committed himself to God, who judges the motives of human hearts. I can safely trust God when I am criticised because He knows why I am being and how I feel about it in my heart. He is scrupulously fair. If my conscience is clear, I can safely leave the whole matter with Him, knowing He will defend me one day. I do not need to pre-empt the last judgment! So if I am being judged by a fellow human being, I do not need to judge back. There is only one judgment seat, and it is most thoroughly occupied!
Another misuse of the tongue is slander. A slanderer finds fault with the demeanour or conduct of others and spreads innuendoes and criticisms about them. According to James, this kind of talk is “full of deadly poison” (3:8). “The poison of vipers,” echoes Paul, “is on their lips” (Romans 3:13). There is always a bit of truth in slander, and that is what makes it so dangerous. It is an exaggeration of faults, a colouring of circumstances. Though perhaps no direct falsehood, by leaving out some details and including others, it is a thorough misrepresentation of a person’s motives or actions.
You can stop slander by saying something like, “Now, we don’t really know all the facts, do we?” Or you can say, “Why don’t we find out what really happened?” Or “Let’s go and ask the people concerned what really happened?” Remember that the devil is often spoken of as “the accuser”. We must be careful not to do his work for him.
If “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34), the only course we can follow is to spend much time alone with our Lord Jesus, so that our heart is filled with an abundance of His love and wisdom. A cup filled with sweet water cannot spill one bitter drop, even when jogged. Whenever people heard Jesus Christ speak, they exclaimed, “What gracious words!” May they always say the same of us.
Jill Briscoe serves as executive editor of Just Between Us and has an active speaking and writing ministry that has taken her all over the world. For more than two decades, she and her husband Stuart have ministered at Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin where Stuart is senior pastor. They have three children and twelve grandchildren.
Excerpt from 8 Choices That Can Change A Woman’s Life by Jill Briscoe.
