The Power of Our Words

We began a two-part Life Together series this Sunday. Before the one-anothers of belonging, the words we speak to one another. The power of the tongue.

It starts with who God is. In the beginning was the Word. God spoke, and there was.

We are made in His image, the only creature He made to speak. We cannot make worlds with our words. But our words give life, and our words can destroy.

James puts a picture to it. A small bit turns a whole horse. A small rudder steers a great ship. One spark sets a forest ablaze.

The tongue is small, and the tongue is a fire. Every one of us has been burned by words. And every one of us has done the burning.

John shows us the pattern. The Word became flesh, full of grace and truth. That is what our words are made to be.

Paul gives us the new self, created after the likeness of God, learning to speak like Him. Three marks.

First, truth. We put away the lie and speak the truth with our neighbor, because we are members one of another, and because the truth is in Jesus. Not a rule we keep. A Person we carry.

Second, grace. Kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave us. The soft answer that turns away wrath. We speak the grace we were given.

Third, building. Only such words as are good for building up, as fits the occasion, the word the moment needs. And sometimes the building word is no word at all. Sometimes the kindest word is the one left unsaid.

We are not there yet. We still stumble, every one of us. The hope is not that we try harder to talk better, but that He is making us new, until the tongue that once burned others learns to bless. Because the Word Himself lives in us.

Something to sit with this week:

Are my words true? Do they carry grace, or do they cut? Did they build today, or tear down?