Bringing Life with Your Speech

Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.” I found a caption that showed how people gossip creatively. One caption had, “How to gossip in Texas, it begins with the phrase bless his heart, and then was followed by why his heart needed to be blessed.” Another was how to gossip in the church and this began, “Please pray for, and then a list of unnecessary reasons for prayer were added. The sad reality is there is much truth in both. The justification in those situations is that showing apparent concern for the individual makes it ok to reveal information that further damages them. That cartoon caption was meant to be humorous, but the reality is that its truth makes it anything but humorous. Because gossip is such a popular past time in the world we have shows named after it, tabloids make billions off it, and people engage in it in quite creative ways. As a result, we may miss the obvious danger of it.  The subject of gossip is not a light hearted one. One of the reasons it is so rampant is because we have failed to grasp the severity of it. Scripture is very clear on the power of the tongue. How we use our tongue can either bring death or life. It can either hurt or heal. And there can be no doubt that sinful gossip is on the hurting side of the tongue. Will your speech bring life or death today?