Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. – Ephesians 4:25
I don’t have the official stats on this but will go out on record predicting that sins of thought are most likely the most pervasive and frequent transgression committed by man. However, the most common expressed sin is probably wrongdoings of speech.
Whenever the Bible talks about the tongue, or about what you say, you ought to stop and study it, and you ought to master it. Because James says,
Whenever the Bible talks about the tongue, or about what you say, you ought to stop and study it, and you ought to master it. Because James says,
“If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man” - James 2:2
Jesus made the point in the Sermon the Mount that wrong speech is enticed by Satan …
Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. – Matthew 5:37
Some of the more regrettable times in my life have come after I have used spoken words that were wrong, whether it was outright lying, speaking erroneously of others, expressing unrighteous anger, or speaking words that were just plain badly chosen. I’ve asked God (and targets) to forgive me, but usually the damage is done.
How can change be accomplished in this area? First recognize this …
“out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” – Matthew 12:34,
and
“the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' – Matthew 15:18
and
“the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' – Matthew 15:18
Again, the source from which the mouth speaks goes back to “the heart”, or the “mind”, biblically. Ask God to take over the patterns of thought in your mind (heart), and the connection to the tongue will, on the authority of God’s word, automatically happen, to the glory of God. Godly thinking leads to Godly speech.
---
--
-
