However, when we read in the New Testament, “be ye holy in all manner of conversation,” and “ your chaste conversation,” the sense must be much as we use the word today. In Job, we read, “ Teach me, and I will hold my tongue,” and “ thou ehoosest the tongue of the crafty.” Of course, the writer means speech, and in our day we use the expression, “ Hold your tongue,” for “Keep quiet.” The child in learning to talk often confuses his “Yes” and his “No” , says one when he may mean the other. He hasn’t mastered his means of com municating his thoughts and feelings. The person who swears may begin as a result of his lack of vocabulary to express his thoughts and feelings. Or, just as frequently, he may begin to swear as a means of bolstering his ego. However much has been done in the psychology of language, in the re lation of one’s speech to one’s inner life, the general public has not been sold on its significance. Perhaps more sermons should be preached on speech, on cursing men, “who are made in the likeness of God.” Maybe we should hear more about the “ idle word,” and the foolish conversation. Language is a form of behavior. The conversation and speech con demned in the Bible is nothing less than faulty behavior. This man says he has acquired the habit of swearing and can’t stop it. Swearing has be come a part of his behavior pattern. The neurologist will tell you that your speech and your nerves are so closely related that what affects one affects the other. But Jesus knew that when
What the Bible says about
your SPEECH
I T is probably true that the Bible has more to say about speech as a way of sinning than about any other single form of sin. At the very beginning, the Ten Commandments warn that we are not to take the name of the Lord in vain. Then Jesus says, “ And I say to you that in the day when they are judged, men will have to give an account of every foolish word they have said. For by your words will your right eousness be seen, and by your words you will be judged” (Matthew 12:36, 37 Basic English). As if to verify what modern psy chologists are telling us, Jesus teaches that our language is so much a part of us that when we hear a person talk we know about his inner life.' During the New Testament times the word “ conversation” was often used to cover the whole field of personal behavior. Filthy conversation is invariably associated with the wicked in both the Old and New Testament. Likewise the wise man and the good are known by their conversation. As a man spoke was taken for granted as being the best index of what the man was. It still is. Jesus said, “ It is from the heart’s overflow that the mouth speaks; a good man utters good words from his store of goodness, the wicked man, from his store of wickedness, can utter nothing but what is evil” (Matt. 12:35 Knox Translation). Paul in writing to Timothy says he is to tell his hearers “ in the name o f the Lord, to keep themselves from fighting about words, which is of no profit, only causing error in their hearers.” And to Timothy he says, “ But take no part in wrong and fool ish talk, for those who do so will go farther into evil.” James must have noticed that a person’s speech often betrays him. He called the tongue a “ fire.” Of course, some in that day held the common belief of his time that the tongue was a separate organ, in a sense apart J A N U A R Y , 1 9 5 1
from the body. It is “ a little member and boasts of great things.” Unhappily, many foreigners hear God’s name taken in vain as part of their first lesson in English. “With it [the tongue] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God,” James writes. Of course he was right in adding, “ this ought not to be so.” George Washington appealed to the men in his army not to swear. The General told them that they were re lying on God’s help, and that they could not sin against Him and then expect Him to bless them. Many of our modern generals are willing to accept George Washington’s advice on military matters, but they seem to ig nore his advice on that point. We would expect James to follow the custom of the time and refer to “ conversation” as general behavior, and attitudes toward life. In Chapter 3:13, he asks: “Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you ? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.” The Hebrew word translated “ con versation” is, I believe the word used for “way.” So when the Psalmist says, “ To him that ordereth his conversa tion aright will I shew the salvation of God,” he means the person who follows the “way” , whose behavior is exemplary, will find the salvation of God. And when we read in Second Peter 3:11, “ . . . what manner of per sons ought ye to be in all holy conver sation and godliness” we are talking about behavior again.
By Calvin T. Ryan Kearney, Nebr.
MÚM AlMUlifl
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