untamed

…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.

James 3:8-9

My untamed tongue gets me in trouble. And in world where “free speech” is considered a human right, we experience the mass effect of millions of untamed tongues spewing flames like so many cigarette lighters in a dry forest. Sinful words wreck havoc. James says the tongue sparks destructive fires (James 3:5-6). Free speech may have a positive impact for social discourse, political dialogue, and personal understanding, but free speech that does this is NOT unrestrained speech. It operates in safe limits. Words still have consequences. For instance: libel, purgery, and inciting insurrections with words are still punishable offenses. We can’t just say what we want. We are held accountable to certain limitations.

Increasingly though, I have found another verbal lack of restraint to be prevalent as a fire-starter. It’s the concept of “saying what I feel”. And some people wrongly dump such verbal diarrhea, making it sound noble by excusing it with: “Hey, I’m just being honest here”. Letting words give full vent to feelings however is a very bad idea. Why? Our feelings rise up from sinful and twisted hearts. Our feelings are often wrong. In fact, the Bible teaches that feelings can be evil. They aren’t just neutral. “Venting” our feelings can wound… can hurt…. can curse people that God wants us to see as created in His image. It is not “honest” to say what I feel. It isn’t noble. It is quite the opposite. It is manipulative, combative, hurtful, and often hateful. Instead, let’s just see that fiery strategy for what it is: unrestrained sinful speech that comes from the poisonous tongue’s reservoir of restless evil.

And today those words that can either heal or hurt are “spoken” most often digitally in a cacophony of public square social media. Our hyper-connected world now lies to us by convincing us 1) that complete strangers we have never met in person are “friends” and “followers”, and 2) that we can say anything in anyway in unrestrained abandon with little to no consequence. The result? We can easily and sloppily let loose words by post or comment that degrade and demean. We tell ourselves we don’t really know the person on the other end of the electronic ether. We might even get laughs and likes when we do so. That reinforces our lack of restraint. And a vicious cycle of this experience is the hallmark of public discourse these days. James is right. A great fire is set ablaze. But know this: that sick little tongue has been what has set the fire.