“If We Are Speaking Of God, We MUST Speak Well”

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

A cursory glance over several New Testament passages which emphasize our speech will reveal that God intends for us to choose our words deliberately.

• In the opening verses of 1 Corinthians, the apostle gives thanks that God's grace enriched their knowledge and their speech. (1 Cor. 1:4-5ff)
• In 1 Corinthians 2:4, the apostle reminds that his words were intended to convey the words of the Holy Spirit—the kind of speech with true power.
• In 2 Corinthians 8, as the Spirit pleads for those Christians to excel in generosity to needy brothers, he commends their excellence in speech, among other things (2 Cor. 8:7ff).
• In 1 Timothy 4:12, one of the antidotes for being despised for one's youth is to set an excellent example in the quality of his speech.
• To Titus, the apostle said, "Show yourself in all respects to be a model of... sound speech that cannot be condemned..." (Titus 2:7-8)
• And in Colossians 4:6, "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person."

It becomes very apparent that this matter matters to God. And it matters in a couple of ways.

Firstly and obviously, it is important that Christians do not speak in ungodly ways. We are not to be blasphemous nor hateful nor untrue. We are not to be judgmental or unnecessarily harsh with our words. We are not to speak curses toward other people. These regulations are evident.

Secondly, and perhaps less obviously, the New Testament perspective on our speech means that we must speak with great thoughtfulness. From the above passages, we are given the impression of someone who speaks slowly and intentionally in order to get just the right words across. This intentional nature of our speech is what leads to excellence in it (2 Cor. 8:7). It gives us the carefully filter our own ideas out of the way and speak the words of the Spirit clearly (1 Cor. 2:4). And it sets us up to speak graciously in high-pressure, high-stakes, or high-intensity circumstances because we have made it a practice to speak graciously in every circumstance (Col. 4:6).

One specific application of this idea: we must work to communicate God's will clearly. It is natural to think of this as a preacher's goal, and it absolutely must be. But it is only his responsibility because he is a Christian and ALL Christians are commissioned to communicate the will of God perfectly as we can. When we flail our way through conversations about the cosmic concepts of redemption, grace, sanctification, holiness, and theology with careless words and haphazard statements of judgment on others... we are not helping anyone see the things of God more clearly. Mark Twain famously said, "The difference between any word and the right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." It takes diligence and humility to speak the oracles of God with a clear mind and a clear conscience.

The way we talk about God matters. It matters to our fellow saints, to the lost world, and to God himself. As Christians, it's time we put in the mental work that is required to communicate God and godliness clearly.

- Dan Lankford, minister

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