followHIM - What does the "The tongue can no man tame?" mean? • followHIM Favorites • Nov 13 - Nov 19

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

Hank Smith and John Bytheway answer a question from this week's Come, Follow Me study.Please rate and review the podcast which makes it easier to find.Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/new-testament-episodes-41-52/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignAnnabelle Sorensen: Creative Project ManagerWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-piano

Hello, my friends. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I'm here with the incredible John, by the way. John, we're going to take on a single question from this week's lesson, which is the Epistle of James. In chapter three, he talks all about the tongue. He says you can't tame the tongue, and the tongue is a little thing, but it can burn down an entire forest. John, what is Paul talking about when he says, try to tame your tongue? Yeah, isn't that interesting? One of the verses I love is verse 10, out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. And there's lots of ways to look at this. I've looked at it with, you don't want to have somebody using horrible language and then see them sitting at the sacrament table on Sunday. I know President Hinckley talked about that. And so James is asking us to have some control

over the tongue, a little member, a little thing, but if you can have control over that, that's great. So that's something to work on. One more thing, Hank, I just remember so many stories of people who have a member of the church at their work or something. Well, the first thing I noticed about him is the way he talked and he didn't curse and how it can be a real good indicator that we're trying to keep our language, our conversation on a higher level. John, I don't know if your mom ever said, watch your tongue. I don't think I can, mom. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. What does that mean to go into the mirror and watch your, you know, watch your tongue? I think the idea is, yeah, you can, you can really wound, you can really hurt people. You can hurt relationships in a matter of just seconds by saying something that is hurtful. I can't be the one that sings in church about how good God is and how much I love my brother. And then with the exact same mouth, just a few hours later, insult my family. And I think that's why James is saying, you've got to tame that tongue. If it's going to praise God in one hour, it better keep praising God the next. I think, John, this also could be applied to how we speak about ourselves. We can really wound our own spirits by insulting ourselves or by denigrating ourselves, even looking in the mirror and saying, insulting our appearance. We need to be able to

tame our tongue in that regard and say good things about yourself and good things about life. President Packer had a little poem, President Boyd K. Packer. I don't know if you've ever heard this. He said, boys flying kites haul in their white winged birds. You can call back your kites, but you can't call back your words. Thoughts unexpressed often fall back dead, but God himself can't kill them once they're said. That's kind of one of those, whoa, type of things. I think in the opposite way too, Hank. Sometimes we think something kind and wonderful about someone, but we don't let it get that

couple of extra inches and come out. It would be a nice thing if we think a nice thought about someone to express that too. Maybe that's another way, a more positive way of thinking of controlling our tongue. Controlling your tongue by having it say good things about your friends behind their backs. Your name is safe. Yeah. Your name is safe in this house. James chapter three.

What a great chapter. We hope you'll join us on our full podcast. It's called follow him. We're with Dr. JB Hawes this week. And JB is maybe just the greatest, nicest, humblest guy you will ever meet. So come join us on our full podcast and then come back next week. We'll do another follow him favorites.