Words are Powerful

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”  I’ve heard this chant at least hundreds of times if I’ve heard it once.  It’s not a totally bad thing to teach children I suppose.  I, for one, was relentlessly teased as a kid and really; as an adult even more.  It doesn’t bother me all that much when people laugh at me, and yet, does that make it okay?  I wonder though, are we inadvertently teaching children that it’s okay to make fun of people as long as we don’t injure them physically?  After all, “Words can’t hurt other people so go ahead and say anything you want, its okay.”

What about adults?  Do we get to say anything we want about people?  Does this apply to gossip as well?  Let me remind us all of something - gossip is a sin.  That’s all there is to it.  Slander, gossip, back biting, they’re all sin.  So is joking around at other people’s expense.  Paul teaches us in Ephesians 4:29 “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”  Later in Ephesians 5:4 Paul tells us we should not ever be part of obscene stories or course joking.  In verse 10 Paul says that we are to “carefully determine what pleases the Lord.” 

I can think of a couple of people in my life who exemplify how we should all be living when it comes to our speech and daily talk.  Jesus said that by our words we will be acquitted or by our words we will be condemned.  (Matthew 12:37)  Let us choose our words carefully and with prayerful thought from this day forward so as to please the One in whom we claim to follow.  We, as Christians, should have the most beautiful and loveliest speech coming from our mouths.  Jesus said that it is from the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.  So if we are speaking nothing but filth and garbage, what does that say about our heart?  If we are snapping at our children for every little thing they do, laughing at others, and just plain being disrespectful with or without words, we need to reexamine our hearts to see if we really are followers of Christ, or just playing games with salvation.