Power of the Tongue

Christian Natural Health

Your words have tremendous power to influence the course of your life.

Jesus teaches it this way. In Matthew 15, the Pharisees are arguing with Jesus because he and his disciples eat food that is considered “unclean” by Jewish law. Jesus explains to them, “What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean’... But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’” (Matt 15:11-19).

Jesus has connected three things here: thoughts, words, and actions. They go in that order: your thoughts are seeds, and they get planted in the “soil” of your heart. They don’t necessarily change the environment right away, but when that seed has been planted, it will germinate, and will spring up and become a tree, which will eventually bear fruit. So you’d better be careful what you’re planting.

Round and Round We Go

When I was in my early 20s, I realized my life was on a merry-go-round. I was living essentially the same story over and over again. The names and details might change, but the characters and circumstances were basically consistent. I wrestled with this for years; I had an intuitive sense that it was a spiritual principle somehow (because everyone’s story seemed to repeat itself, not just mine!), but I could not for the life of me figure out why.

I was 25 when I finally understood (and wondered why it had taken me so long, because it seemed so blatantly obvious in retrospect). In all of those iterations of the same story, there was only one common denominator: me. I realized that my beliefs were essentially, “My life will always be this way. I will never get out of this cycle. I will always repeat this pattern.” I bitterly said something to this effect every time I told my tale of woe to a sympathetic friend. I wrote about it every day in my journal. I prayed about it every day to God - but despite the biblical promises that God had something better for me, I never actually believed what God said my future held. Instead, I told Him that my future would be exactly the same as my past. I gained a twisted sense of satisfaction by complaining, little knowing that my words were actually prophetic. I was planting seeds, and those seeds were bearing fruit - unfortunately, the fruit they bore was exactly the same fruit I was already harvesting in my life. Instead of recognizing this and changing what I planted, I’d cut open that fruit, pull out the seeds, and plant them right back in the soil of my heart. For years.

Jesus compares the Word of God to a seed in the Parable of the Sower (Matt 13:1-23). When it falls on good soil and isn’t choked out by the cares of this life and deceitfulness of wealth, Jesus said that seed will germinate, sprout and bear fruit - thirty, sixty, and a hundred-fold. But this process is indifferent: your heart will grow whatever you plant in it, whether the seed is good or bad. “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit... For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt 12:33-34; Luke 6:43-45).

Guard Your Heart

The first five books of the Bible contain extremely detailed laws that the Jews had to abide by in order to be “right” with God. The Pharisees had even added hundreds of additional laws of their own by the time Jesus showed up. But their laws were all about external actions. Jesus’ laws went much deeper - his dealt not just with wrong actions, but with the wrong thinking that eventually produced wrong actions (Matt 5). Jesus said it’s not enough to not commit murder - don’t even think about murder. It’s not enough not to commit adultery - don’t even look at a woman lustfully. What’s he saying? Guard your heart. He knows that the heart will grow whatever you plant in it. The thought will eventually produce the words, and the words will eventually produce the actions.

Because the heart grows whatever you plant in it, before anything else you have to start with Solomon’s famous advice: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Prov 4:23).

So be vigilant about what you plant in your heart. Solomon talks about this a lot:

• “Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart” (Prov 7:1-3).
• “A wise man’s heart guides his mouth, and his lips promote instruction” (Prov 16:23).
• “The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge; the ears of the wise seek it out” (Prov 18:15).
• “Apply your heart to what I teach, for it is pleasing when you keep them in your heart and have all of them ready on your lips” (Prov 22:17-18).
• “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he” (Prov 23:7).

Guard Your Mouth

If your thinking is right, then your speaking will be right automatically. But what if both your thinking and your speaking are already wrong?

In the midst of my “merry-go-round,” I don’t know if I could have changed what I said about my future. The habit was too entrenched by then... but at least I could have kept my mouth shut!

In Luke 1, the angel Gabriel visits Zechariah and tells him that his elderly and barren wife Elizabeth would bear him a son (who would become John the Baptist). But Zechariah did not respond to this statement in faith (as Mary did when she received a similar prophecy that she would become pregnant with Jesus, even though she was a virgin). Instead, Zechariah said, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years” (Luke 1:18). The angel’s reply is disapproving: “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.” But then he adds something interesting: “And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time” (Luke 1:20).

This wasn’t just a punishment; the angel said this for a very good reason. Zechariah didn’t believe God’s word, and the angel knew that he would continue to speak his doubts, for nine months. Could that have stopped John’s birth, had Zechariah’s mouth gone unchecked? Another story from the Old Testament suggests that it might have.

An Evil Report

The Israelite spies told the rest of the Israelites after exploring Canaan, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are... We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them” (Numbers 13:31-33). Objectively, this report was true: the spies reported what they saw. There were giants in the land, and their cities were fortified and very powerful. The Israelites, on the other hand, were a nomadic band of former slaves who had never fought a battle in their lives, and apparently they were a lot smaller than the Canaanites. But God called this an “evil report” (13:32), because it disagreed with what He said. He told the Israelites that He was giving them the land (Deuteronomy 1:29-31), so the size and might of the inhabitants was irrelevant.

What happened? The Israelites had been complaining ever since Moses had led them out of Egypt and out of slavery that they would die in the wilderness. After their disobedience and unbelief, God says, “I will do to you the very things I heard you say: In this desert your bodies will fall” (Numbers 14:28-29). Not one of those Israelites who spread that evil report got to experience God’s Promised Land.

So an evil report is anything that disagrees with what God says, even when it accurately describes the current situation. When you’re tempted to say what you see instead of what God says, Solomon advises you to hold your tongue. Speak only what agrees with God’s word, and if you can’t do that, then at least keep your mouth shut!

• “A man of knowledge uses words with restraint” (Prov 17:27).
• “Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue” (Prov 17:28).
• “He who guards his lips guards his life, but he who speaks rashly will come to ruin” (Prov 13:3).
• “Do you see a man who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Prov 29:20).
• “A chattering fool comes to ruin” (Prov 10:10).
• “A fool’s mouth is his undoing, and his lips are a snare to his soul” (Prov 18:7).
• “He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity” (Prov 21:23).

Speak Life, Not Death

If the best you can do is hold your tongue, you do well. But if instead you use your tongue to say what God says about the situation, you do much better! We can plant the Word of God in our hearts as a seed, instead of a faithless, evil report. It won’t change the way we think overnight, but eventually that seed will become a tree, and the tree will bear fruit, and the fruit will influence the direction of our lives. We can “be transformed by the renewing of [our] mind[s]” (Romans 12:2).

• “The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood, but the speech of the upright rescues them” (Prov 12:6).
• “From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him” (Prov 12:14).
• “From the fruit of his lips a man enjoys good things” (Prov 13:2).
• “From the fruit of his mouth a man’s stomach is filled; with the harvest from his lips he is satisfied” (Prov 18:20).
• “For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt 12:37).
• “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (Prov 18:21).

Back to the story of the Israelite spies: all of the Israelites spread an evil report except two, Joshua and Caleb. After the rest of the spies’ resoundingly negative report, Caleb countered them and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it” (Numbers 13:30). In response, God said, “Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun” (Numbers 14:30). Joshua went on to become Moses’ successor, and Caleb was the only other member of the Israelite community over the age of 20 at the time of the exploration who got to go in to the Promised Land. They got what they said.

Solomon said the tongue has the power of life and death. Another famous place in the Bible that uses this same phrase is Deuteronomy 30. Here, God says, “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him” (Deut 30:19-20).

Our tongues have the power of blessing us by speaking God’s word (leading to life), or of cursing us by speaking what is contrary to God’s word (leading to death). God says the choice is up to us - but He recommends that we choose life.

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