In keeping with the resolution in my previous post, I have spent a bit of time over the past few weeks studying my life and looking for ways to put God first. One area that has been interesting me for some time, and that I have been studying on and off, is speech.
We all know that speech is very important. After all, God could have simply thought the universe into existence, but He chose to speak it into existence. He also uses words and speech to speak to us personally through His Word. We are to use our speech to communicate the Gospel to other people. Speech is a gift from God, and as Christians, we should put God first in how, what, when, and why we speak.
In order to have Biblically good speech, we must address our hearts. Speech is the display of the heart: "How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34, ESV). If we want God to be first in our speech, we must make Him first in our hearts. Therefore, we must be careful what we put into our hearts and minds. Phillipians 4:8 gives us some characteristics of such things: "Whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." The phrase "think about" (also translated as "consider") comes from the Greek meaning "to reason, deliberate, ponder, consider." This gives the sense of long periods of thought about a particular thing, and the concentration of the mind on it. These are the things that come to mind when we are alone with nothing else to think about. Unfortunately, in my life, the first thing that comes to mind in such circumstances is rarely God or the things of God. I need to work to put more of His thoughts into my heart and mind! Only then will my speech conform to His standards.
You might ask, "what does 'sound speech' (Titus 2:8) look like?" The Bible does not give us a checklist of things to include or avoid in our speech, but it does give us principles to follow and examples of good and bad speech. As I study through what the Scriptures say about this important subject, I will post verse studies and other thoughts that pertain to sound speech. Till then, God bless you all in your endeavors!
Please comment with your thoughts on this post and/or subject. I would like to hear them!
~Mac
3 comments:
Interesting way of naming the words we speak: sound speech.
I think my favorite verse is still Ephesians 4:29 which is pretty clear on what is good to say, but not so clear on what is "unwholesome" talk. I think it's important to just think over what you say and "reason, deliberate, ponder, and consider" if it's worth saying at all!
Proverbs 15:27 (NASB) The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours of evil things.
Great post!
Sorry... Proverbs 15:28 not 27...
Ephesians 4:29 is one of my favorite verses on this topic too! Maybe you should do a guest post on that verse ;-)
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