Sticks x Stones
Whoever said, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me,” was a liar.
Words are incredibly powerful and sticky. A stray comment or errant word can live in our minds for hours or even days. The little voice in our heads often repeats the lines we heard in childhood.
The Bible has a lot to say about our speech. One of my favorite verses is Proverbs 18:21, Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit (CSB).
While this verse is sometimes used to teach that we can create or manifest things with our words, I don’t believe that’s what the writer is getting at. Our words have the power to build and to destroy. They can create life in others or tear them down.
I often have conversations centered around speech. We want an easy list of words we can and cannot say, but it’s never that simple.
So much of scripture is about how we speak to each other and less about specific word choice:
Ephesians 4:29: 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.
James 3:9-10: With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.
Colossians 3:8: But now, put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth.
These are just a few examples. James 3 isn’t speaking about specific words but how we talk to and about each other. Colossians is the best argument for our parameters around speech because it says “filthy language,” but it begs the question of what filthy language is.
Scripture doesn’t cite the words we think of because many of those words didn’t exist when the Bible was written, or some had a different cultural connotation.
So much of what we define as filthy language tends to be cultural. Some words are acceptable in some cultures but are not in others. I am in no place to tell you that your culture is wrong and mine is the correct one. This is why I focus on the overall tenor of what we say rather than the specific words.
I have seen people destroy the souls of others without ever uttering a foul word. I counsel people (and in many ways myself) who can’t stop repeating the harsh words that were said to them in their formative years.
Our brains are wired this way. Our sense of hearing is the only sense that feeds directly into the limbic system. The limbic system is the portion of our brain that controls our emotions. This explains why words can affect us so profoundly.
How do your words make people feel? Do they walk away from interactions with you feeling built up or destroyed?
Jesus has some ominous words for the Pharisees in Matthew 12:
“Either make the tree good and its fruit will be good, or make the tree bad and its fruit will be bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. 34 Brood of vipers! How can you speak good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. 35 A good person produces good things from his storeroom of good, and an evil person produces evil things from his storeroom of evil. 36 I tell you that on the day of judgment, people will have to account for every careless word they speak. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
I have a lot of careless words in my life. What I won’t do is make the mistake of thinking that the only bad words are the ones that fit into a small, narrowly defined group of “bad words.”
I hope to tame my tongue someday, as James said, to close the gap between my life and my lips. I want to be known as someone who builds up and encourages others in what I choose to say and not say.