“But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” – James 3:8-10
The tongue is truly a restless evil! The evidence of this is everywhere in our social media, news outlets, and even casual conversations. We see it in our leaders, in our movements, and in the breaking down of our civil culture. From the sound and fury, it would appear that the United States has divided into two groups that each sincerely desires for the other group to be swallowed by the earth. That isn’t sustainable! Our political discourse has moved from principled disagreement to absolute negation of those on the other side as unacceptably monstrous. This path leads to utter destruction as the deadly poison of millions of tongues spreads and destroys this nation.
As Christians we can’t be responsible for anyone else’s tongue, but we must be responsible for our own! A Christian cannot be cursing, denigrating, dehumanizing, or insulting another human. Period. Ever. We simply can’t. We must never sink to that level, because when we speak we represent Jesus Christ! If you’re praising God on Sunday, you better not be cursing people on Monday!
We must learn to live by the Holy Spirit and let Him teach us how to disagree with a person, policy, party, or position without attacking that person as a human being. We must discipline ourselves in the Spirit to reject and resist false or sinful perspectives without speaking evil ourselves. In the power of the Spirit, we must learn not to respond to the poisonous words of others with poisonous words of our own. As Christians, we need to speak words of life and renewal, even as we firmly and boldly proclaim the truth of the Gospel and the goodness of God’s design for human flourishing.