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Our Conversation Reveals Our Character
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What
we say, and how we say it reveals a lot more about ourselves than we
care to admit. There has been a general coarsening of conversation in
our country over the last fifty years. Words that our grandparents
would never think of uttering are now common place. Profanity that
never used to be heard on television and radio is now an every-day
occurrence. Increasingly, public figures use God’s name in vain,
violating the Third Commandment with impunity. Adults and even small
children use crude and obscene language that would make people blush a
generation or two ago.
God is very careful about what
He says. We are told that God “cannot lie” (Titus 1:2). This is true
because “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John
1:5).
James, Jesus’ half brother,
and a leading figure in the early Church warned fellow Christians that
“no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly
poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men,
who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come
both blessing and cursing.” He concluded, “ My brethren, these things
ought not to be that way” (James 3:8-10).
Jesus cautioned us that, in
the day of judgment, each one of us will have to give an account for
every careless word we have uttered (Matthew 12:36). He warned,
“whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and
what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the
housetops” (Luke 12:3).
We as Christians are to
reflect God’s standard of speech. Christians are exhorted, “Let your
speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you
will know how you should respond to each person” (Colossians 4:6).
Peter, the most outspoken of
the original Twelve Apostles wrote, “To sum up, all of you be
harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit;
not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing
instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might
inherit a blessing” (1 Peter 1:8-9).
So how are you and I doing? What does our conversation say about our character?
