Words

I love words. I love learning new ones and having the opportunity to use them. I love reading well crafted sentences. I appreciate puns, even if they do make me cringe a little.

My father once gave me a profound piece of advice. He told me that words are like toothpaste. Once toothpaste is out of the tube, no matter how hard you try, you can't get it back in.

Recently, God has been really challenging me on how I use my words. Words are powerful. In the beginning, God spoke words and what he spoke came into being. Our words can damage and they can build up. The Bible is very clear on what types of words you should be using:

They are to be considered
Matthew 12:36-37 says that "everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned." That is a strong statement. It's actually really troubling. How many empty words have I spoken? Which words will acquit me and which will condemn me?

They are to give life and to build people
The Bible recognises the importance of words in people's lives. They can renew, encourage and prosper people. Conversely they can be damaging and hurtful. Ephesians 4:29, Proverbs 25:15, 1 Peter 3:9 are all helpful (read them here), but I think Proverbs 15:4 puts it beautifully:

Gentle words are a tree of life;
a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.

They should have value
Proverbs 11:11 tells us how we as Godly citizens can prosper a city. If, however, we are careless with our words we can bring destruction. If we speak with consideration our words can prosper a whole city. I think that's amazing.

They should be pure
I like a poo joke as much as the next man. And although ruling them out entirely may be a bit extreme (the Bible does contains some scatological humour), I need to keep my words as pure as possible. Philippians 4:8 says how we should think on things that are right and pure. If we speak of things that are impure, we're obviously thinking about them too. Ephesians 5:4 also warns against crude jokes and stories.

They should be thankful
The last verse from Ephesians leads me onto this one quite nicely. It talks about how our talk, instead of being crude, should be full of thanks and praises to God.

The hard thing is going to be remembering this when I go to open my mouth. Does anyone have any advice on how to do this? Maybe I should write it on my hand.

I'll leave you with a final verse from James:

If you claim to be religious but don't control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.

Yikes!

Quick Questions

1. Do you have stories of how words have been a powerful force in your life (either positively or negatively)?
2. What advice do you have about taming your tongue (vows of silence, swear jars, etc.)?
3. What other things should we consider when using our tongues?

Thank God for Jesus...

On Monday 16th May I started the Bible in 90 days reading plan. This means I should be well over a third into the Bible. Except I'm not. I didn't even make it out of Genesis.Fortunately, I have a God of grace, and God doesn't do Heaven Entrance Exams. No matter how many times my good intentions lead to nothing, I still have Jesus.

So why did it fail so abysmally? I think a few reasons contributed to it:

• Lack of accountability: There was no incentive to do it when I didn't feel like it. I've only been asked about it on the blog once, and managed to evade answering the questions until now.
• A dry, intellectual approach: My goal was really to just get the Bible out of the way so I can say I've done it. It wasn't in pursuit of God or anything like that. Currently I'm reading Wuthering Heights, not because I'm enjoying it, but just so I can tick that one off my list. This approach is fine with novels, but not with the Bible.
• Lack of variety: I've read Genesis a few times now, and I'm aware that there are areas of the Bible I'm less familiar with so it made it quite frustrating.

But don't despair over me and my heathen ways just yet. Not only because that would be seriously judgemental, but also because I've taken a new approach, which has (so far) been more successful. I've started using the WordLive material that quite a few people in my church use. Have a read of this blog to see some of the responses of a friend from my church and her experiences of the material.

I've tried to do it before, individually, but again the lack of accountability was still an issue. So now I'm doing it with someone. I meet regularly with a good friend, Duncan, to keep accountable with one another, and we were both lamenting on how rubbish we were at regularly reading the Bible. I think accountability partnerships become useless if you don't try and do something about the problems you've discussed. So we decided that we would follow the WordLive plan and text each other after we'd read it to give each other our responses.

This seems to have solved the problems listed above:

• Accountability: Well, I've already discussed this one. Knowing that someone is waiting for a text from you is a good incentive. Also, if I forget, the text I receive from Duncan will give me a nudge.
• God seeking approach: WordLive has both a prepare and respond section in its reading, ensuring that it isn't a dry, intellectual approach. I also have to consider how it personally applicable to me because Duncan is waiting to find out.
• Variety: WordLive gives a lot of variety. We've covered passages from Acts, Galatians, Psalms and Numbers in the few weeks we've been doing it. They also have pictures, music, explanations of the cultural and social contexts and a summary of the main points of the passage. This prevents it getting dry and boring.

I may write a few posts on my responses to passages, but will tweeting them more regularly. If you don't already follow me on twitter, then this is a good time to start.

Quick Questions

1. Do you have an accountability partner? How has this helped you?
2. In what ways do you engage with the Bible? Do you listen to it being read, do you follow a plan, do you do more creative things?