A friend recently started me thinking about this as she was praying a talk about the church being destroyed from within. It’s a scary thought and yet I can see exactly where she’s coming from. Words are dangerous tools. They can do so much good and also so much harm.
Ephesians 4:29-32 has some interesting things to say about unhelpful, unwholesome talk. I find it interesting that it comes straight after a passage about not giving the devil a foothold. He can so easily get a foothold on conversations with gossip, sarcasm, criticism, off color jokes – all things to do with our speech. It also comes after not stealing. It is easy to steal and damage a person good name or reputation by careless words and gossip.
Instead, this passage reminds us not to let any unwholesome talk come out of our mouths. Our words reveal about our heart attitudes. If we are critical, unloving and gossiping about others, what does that say about the state of our hearts? Nothing good, that’s for sure!
Rather our words should be encouraging and words designed to build others up rather than tear them down. We all know I’m sure how much value an encouraging word can be when we’re feeling down or when we’re feeling discouraged. It can give you just the charge you need to keep going. Let’s seek to be encouragers of others.
We grieve the Holy Spirit and therefore affect our relationship with God when we resort to angry words, slander and malice. We also ruin our Christian witness with gossip and sarcasm and lose opportunities to make friends and to share the gospel when our words are unkind and malicious.
This week and in the weeks to come, let us strive to be kind and compassionate to others as God’s Word tells us to be and to be forgiving of those that hurt us and not respond with hasty, unkind words or gossip. When we do we are doing our part to destroy the church from within. When we watch our words and use them to encourage and uplift we are doing our part to build the church.
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