Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Why You Love Gossip | New Testament | James 3

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Are you controlled by your tongue? Here's a challenge: go 24 hours without gossiping, complaining or saying anything unkind. Can you pass? Keith shares about the power your words hold and what they reveal about your heart according to James 3. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: James 3

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. My tongue has always gotten me in trouble. What about you? Do you have a tongue problem? Here's a test. Can you go 24 hours without complaining, criticizing, gossiping, condemning, saying anything

unkind, lying, deceiving, or using words that are impatient or angry? There was a rabbi who, when he speaks to a group, asks them if they can go 24 hours. without saying unkind words about or to another person. A small number of listeners usually say, yes, they can. Others laugh, and a large number call out and say, well, of course not. And then the rabbi responds. He says, those who can't answer yes must recognize that they have a serious problem. If you cannot go 24 hours without drinking alcohol, you have an alcohol problem.

If you cannot go 24 hours without smoking, you have a nicotine problem. If you cannot go 24 hours without saying unkind words, then you have a tongue problem. There's probably no greater consistent evidence of our need for grace than how we talk. We need the forgiveness grace offers and its power to transform us. Our talk is important because God talks. The first thing God does in the Bible is he speaks. He says, let there be light. Our words are important because God created them.

Human beings are made in the image of God. We talk because he does. Words mark the most important moments in our life. when our oldest first started to talk my wife and i debated what his first words were i thought he was saying dad she thought he was saying mom it turns out he was saying dog but we remember that i remember being in preschool and the teacher saying she was going to wash my mouth out with soap that's evidence that my mouth was getting me in trouble from the very beginning my grandma was a big part of my life and i remember the last conversation that I had with her before she died.

Words are powerful. There was power in Hitler's words. He used those words to do great evil. There was power in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's words, who used his words to inspire a country toward greater freedom. We've all spoken hurtful words that we regret, but can't be taken back. And we've had hurtful things said to us.

Words are like toothpaste. You can't get the toothpaste back in the tube, and you can't get the words back in your mouth. James tackles our speech. He tackles how we talk. Let's start in James 3, verse 2, where he states our problem. We all stumble in many ways, he writes. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect,

able to keep their whole body in check. It's so difficult to control the tongue, to not say something false or biting or sarcastic or hurtful or slanderous, that the person who can keep their tongue in check will have an easy time with everything else. James knows that some will wonder if he's exaggerated the power of the tongue, so he explains how something small can have a huge impact. Verse 3. When we put bits in the mouths of horses to make them obey us,

we can turn the whole animal or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Think how big and strong a horse is. Think about how big a ship is. And yet, they're both controlled by something very small. We are often controlled by our tongue.

Proverbs 1821 says the tongue has the power of life and death. That means that our tongue has the power to build others up and to tear others down, to encourage them and to discourage them. them, to show anger, but also to show patience, to be selfish, but also to be sacrificially kind. There's more power in our words than we think. We might say it's only words, but it's words that has the power to separate close friends.

There's the old saying, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. That's almost exactly the opposite of the truth. Bones, they get healed up, but words, they do damage that can last. a lifetime. James chapter 3, verse 5. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body.

It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. James is making clear that the tongue might be small, but it has awesome potential to harm. The Chicago Tribune reported that at 9 o'clock on Sunday evening, October, 8th, 1871, Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a lantern and started the great Chicago fire, which lasted two days and destroyed over 17,000 buildings and killed over 200 people. But that wasn't even the biggest fire in America that year. The same day that the Chicago fire started, a fire started in northern Wisconsin and burned

for an entire month and killed more people than died in Chicago. James is saying that the misuse of the tongue can result in spiritual, arson, leaving destruction and devastation wherever it goes. Think about gossip, talking about others in a negative way behind their back, saying things like, well, have you heard? Or keep this to yourself but? Or I don't believe it's true, but I heard. Or I wouldn't tell you except I know you won't spread it any further. Of course, the most spiritual way to start a gossipy conversation is to say, I'm telling this to you so that you can pray. The Proverbs 188 says the words of a gossip are like choice morsels.

They go down to the inmost part. It's saying that gossip isn't just kind of fun to say, but it's also fun to hear. Why is it so attractive to spread gossip or to listen to gossip? Well, oftentimes gossip is sharing about other people's misfortune in a way that makes it entertainment, like a way that makes yourself feel better about your own life. Gossip destroys people. They aren't present to defend themselves or to offer their perspective or to offer context at all. And then people's opinion about them changes and they're not even sure why.

It's hard to gain back your reputation. It's hard to gain back friendships or leadership positions when they have been ruined by gossip. But of course, gossip isn't the only sin of the tongue. There's also the sin of flattery. If gossip is saying behind a person's back what you'd never say to their face, flattery is saying to their face what you'd never say behind their back. In other words, flattery is manipulative. It's something you use to get what you want.

And of course, there's sins of the tongue like grumbling, complaining, lying. The list is kind of long. James gets to the root of all this in verse 9. He writes, With the tongue, we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness.

Out of the same mouth comes praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both freshwater and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives or a grapevine bear figs? Well, neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. See, what James is saying is that our mouth is not independent. It's vitally connected to the rest of us.

what comes out of our mouth unfailingly reveals what's going on inside of us. Jesus says that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So the true condition of your heart is always revealed by the words you speak. Our words reveal that our hearts are flawed. Our tongue problems are really heart problems. In response, James doesn't offer us a communication technique. He points us to a Savior. You see, James says our most primary.

our most basic need isn't to learn to be better communicators. Our primary basic need is that we need a savior. Okay, back to James 3. Here's verse 7. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. If you've been to SeaWorld or the circus, you know you can tame an animal.

but James says you can't tame the tongue. Try to tame the tongue. Try to stop gossiping or complaining or lying. Well, when you try that, you realize that you'll fail. It brings you to the end of yourself. It forces you to realize that you are helpless in the face of your own sin. James said that no human can tame the tongue. And he's right about that.

But God can tame it. When we are surrendered to God, he can transform our lives, even our tongue. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. As we surrender our heart to Jesus, as we learn to follow him and trust in him and hope in him and believe his promises, our tongue will change. How we talk to people will change. Our tongue problem is a heart problem.

If we're going to solve the problem with the tongue, it starts by working on our heart. Hey, thanks for listening. If you want to go deeper, sign up for the 10. minute Bible Talk newsletter. You'll get a short email once a week. It'll challenge you to grow in your faith, give you interesting background on today's passage, and a lot, lot more. Just click the link in the show notes to sign up. It'll help you deepen your journey with Jesus.