Choose Your Words Wisely

 

President Calvin Coolidge was known for being a man of few words. His preference for not speaking earned him the nickname “Silent Cal.” His wife Grace told a story about a White House dinner party in which a young lady was seated beside the President. She told Coolidge that she made a bet with her friend that she could get him to say at least three words during dinner. 

 

“You lose,” Coolidge said, without even looking up from his plate, and he didn’t speak another word during the course of the meal. Talk about choosing your words wisely! Coolidge didn’t say much, but when he did, he tried to make his words count. 

 

Some speak more than others, but on average people say about 7,000 words a day. Whether you are on the top end of that number, or whether you are closer to Silent Cal, you should still choose your words wisely. That is what David wanted to do. He once wrote, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer (Psalm 19:14).” 

 

A great question to ask is, “Are my words acceptable in God’s sight?” Sometimes we deem things as unacceptable. A parent tells their child their behavior is unacceptable, or a teacher tells a student the assignment they turned in is unacceptable. I would hate to know that God found my words to be unacceptable. That assessment is probably true of all of us from time to time, but for some their overall speech patterns are unacceptable. 

 

Crude words are unacceptable, and Paul said, “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification…(Ephesians 4:29).” Dishonest words are unacceptable, and Solomon said, “These six things the Lord hates…a proud look, a lying tongue (Proverbs 6:16-17).” Blasphemous words are unacceptable, and Moses wrote, “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain (Exodus 20:7).” 

 

Some might wonder what the big deal is. How can words uttered into the air really be a problem? For starters, our words reveal a heart issue; if we are losing our temper and saying angry things, those words are just symptoms of a worse problem. But another reason to choose our words carefully is that they are a reflection of the God we serve. If we are liars, the world will not trust us when we tell them they need Jesus. When we are crude, they will not think they need Jesus if Jesus hasn’t cleaned us up. When we blaspheme, they won’t think Jesus is special to us. 

 

The words we say matter to God because they can turn people off to Him. You don’t have to be Silent Cal, but please choose your words wisely. 

 

The Sting of Death

 

One of my favorite lines from Scripture comes from I Corinthians 15:55, which says, “O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?” Paul’s question to death personified was actually borrowed from the prophet Hosea; in the thirteenth chapter of his letter, Hosea asks four questions intended to serve as a call for judgment on God’s wayward people. 

 

Hosea was inviting death to come as punishment, but Paul forever changed the meaning of Hosea’s prophecy. Hosea summoned death, but Paul sneered at it. Hosea asked, “Come over here Death, where is your sting?” Paul asked, “Is that all you’ve got Death? Where is your sting?” 

 

When I think about a sting, I can’t help but think about a wasp or bee. Maybe its because I was stung so frequently as a child, or maybe because I am highly allergic to them, but at the mention of a sting I instantly hear buzzing in my ears. As a child there was nothing scarier than getting stung. I lived in fear of the stinger. But now that I am older I realize the sting is the end of the wasp. Once he stings me, he can never sting again. It may hurt for a minute, but I’ll live to see the other side (provided I take my medicine, of course). If a wasp stings me today, I can taunt that wasp by asking, “Where is your sting?” Its stinger is forever dislodged, and that wasp has done the worst it can do. 

 

Death is like that. I am not trying to minimize the sting of death because my family has taken its best shot recently. Death is hard on us because we miss our loved ones, but Paul helps us see to the other side of death. How was Paul able to transform Hosea’s summons into a sneer? The answer is found in the work of Jesus and the gift of salvation. In the next two verses the apostle wrote: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

 

This comes from Paul’s longest treatise on the resurrection of Jesus, and because of His resurrection, there will be one for us as well. Because Jesus walked out of the tomb, we will rise from ours. These bodies which are sown as perishable will rise as ones imperishable. Even now, our loved ones who have passed on are alive and well in the presence of the Lord, celebrating this victory and laughing in the face of death. Death stings us because we miss those who have departed, but if they were saved, death did them a favor. 

 

For those who are alive and well in the presence of Jesus, they can join Paul in taunting Death, asking, “Is that all you’ve got?” As a child I feared death as much as I feared a bee sting, but as a child of God I am no longer afraid of either. I know their sting is temporary, and Death has been swallowed up in Victory. Our weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes with the morning. When our time on earth is up, Death will have done all it can ever do to us, and we will be the ones found victorious.   

 

Samson: Hero or Villain?

A favorite Bible character for many people is Samson. The Old Testament figure is preserved for us in the book of Judges, and his life was truly noteworthy. He never had a single haircut (well, he had one near the end of his life, and it was very costly), he killed a lion with his bare hands, and he was known for his incredible strength. He was so powerful that some have suggested the Bible exaggerates his feats (a position I do not hold). 

 

By all accounts Samson was a bad man. Here are some of the highlights of his life:

He proposed a riddle to thirty people, and the wager involved a change of clothes—thirty for him if they could not solve it, and one for each of them if they could. When they solved his riddle, he killed thirty Philistines, disrobed them, and presented their clothes as his payment. On another occasion he caught 300 foxes, tied them together by their tails, and set them on fire; this sent 150 sets of burning foxes running through the Philistine fields, devastating their crops. After visiting a Philistine prostitute, he ripped the city gate off its hinges on his way home, and carried it forty miles away. His last act on earth was a murder/suicide, something that if occurred today would be called a terror attack. 

 

Bad guy, right? If that is all we ever read about Samson we might conclude that he was a failure, a villain that would go down with people like Nabal, King Saul, or even Queen Jezebel. But the New Testament has something nice to say about the intriguing judge; of all places, he appears in Hebrews 11, the “Hall of Faith” of the Bible. After naming great people of faith, the writer adds this conclusion:

 

“And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens (v.32-34).”

 

I’m sorry, did I just see Samson’s name on that list, in the same breath as David and Gideon? The author of Hebrews recognized something in Samson, particularly what we see in the last line, he “became valiant in battle,” and “turned to flight the armies” of the Philistines. Bestselling author Stephen Miller wrote, “Some historians say Samson’s legacy assured Israel’s survival. Before he came along, the kingless Jews were in the process of becoming assimilated into the culture of their stronger neighbor…Samson forever changed the relationship by driving a wedge of distrust and anger between the two nations. In time, the Jews would emerge as winners in the war for the Promised Land.” 

 

I love Samson because, even though he had his many faults, he is proof that we are not defined by our worst moments. He messed up many times, but when push came to shove, he demonstrated faith in God. Many of our Bible heroes are just like that: a collection of successes and defeats. Please don’t misunderstand me: I am not saying that it doesn’t matter how we live or what we do. We should do our best, but the reality is we will make mistakes. The most important thing, then, is if we have faith in Jesus. Let your faith be what defines your life, not your feats or failures. 

 

 

 

Laziness

 

Are you a lazy person? I’m not talking about enjoying times of rest; we all need that. But rest is actually a break from activity. The lazy are inactive, so they cannot actually rest. The lazy are the people who would do anything to never have to do anything. When there is work to be done, they cannot be found. 

 

Solomon had nothing good to say about the lazy, and nothing but good to say about those who work hard. In Proverbs 6 he uses a loathsome insect as an object lesson, writing, “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest (v.6-8).” Solomon was right; as far as we know, ants have no overseers in the field making sure they do their work, yet off to work they go. To the best of our knowledge, there is no recourse for an ant not doing his job, but you will never see one lounging around with his feet up. In fact, ants can be seen carrying an astonishing fifty times their own body weight with just two arms. No wonder Solomon pointed to the ant as an example of work ethic.

 

Turning his attention back to the lazy person Solomon continued: “How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man (v.9-11).” Ants always have plenty to eat because they work for it, but if the sluggard isn’t careful, he will walk to his pantry and discover its shelves to be bare. Poverty will come upon him like a bandit, and he will have no one to thank but his own inactivity. 

 

What have the lazy ever contributed to society? I have never walked through a museum and heard the tour guide say, “And in this room we have all the accomplishments of lazy people.” I have never seen a monument erected to honor a lazy person. There are no museums or monuments for the lazy. On the other hand, we honor people like George Washington and his men for crossing the Delaware because they were exhausted and low on rations. We honor people like Thomas Edison for not letting his earlier failures keep him from perfecting the lightbulb. When the going got tough, they pushed through. 

 

If you want to do something significant then you can’t be lazy. Aside from the fact that laziness is a poor testimony for Christians, it reduces our lives to insignificance. God made us on purpose for a purpose, and He expects us to work. If He was done with us He would have already called us to heaven, so as long as He leaves us here, we need to be busy. 

 

 

Carried Along

 

When it comes to how we understand the Bible, there are several different opinions. Some believe that the Bible is nothing more than the words of a handful of people who were starting a man made religion, while others believe the words of the Bible are nothing less than the words of God Himself. The latter position holds to the idea of inerrancy, that the Bible is absolutely free from errors (there are varying degrees of belief in inerrancy, but I am a firm believer that what is inspired is surely inerrant). 

 

Perhaps the best clue we have to the claim for inerrancy is found in II Peter 1. There we read “Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (v.20-21).” The King James Version says these men spoke as they “were moved by” the Spirit. I want to focus on that word moved or “carried along” in the English Standard Version. 

 

One of the best ways to get an understanding of what a word means in this situation is to see how the same Greek word was used elsewhere. A good help to us is the word’s appearance in Acts 27:15 where Luke described their shipwreck: “And when the ship was caught and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and were driven along.” The “driven along” at the end of the verse is the same verb Peter used to describe the process by which men wrote the Bible. Derek Thomas wrote about this word, saying, “These men…were not simply prompted or led by Him, but by carried by Him. When someone is carried, he is set down at the destination of the carrier.” 

 

Benjamin Warfield added, “What is ‘borne’ (carried along) is taken up by the bearer and conveyed by the bearer’s power, not its own, to the bearer’s goal, not its own.” Luke and everyone else in the ship were completely at the mercy of the wind. They lost all control of themselves and would wind up only where the wind sent them (interestingly, the same word for wind gives us the Holy Spirit). 

 

Peter’s point, then, is that the men God used to write the Bible were the instrument in the hand of the Holy Spirit. Yes, their human hands physically penned the words on the paper, but the message came from God. The men who wrote knew they were writing; they were not in a trance or mere secretaries transcribing a dictation. But the finished product was exactly what God wanted recorded. It was not Paul’s opinions, Micah’s musings, or David’s daydreams. It is Holy Scripture, something breathed out by Almighty God, written by men, and preserved by the church for thousands of years. We can trust what we read because what we read was written by our Lord. 

 

Enduring Pain

 

I used to play a lot of basketball, like seven days a week. I was always on teams or just playing in the driveway. I have always loved the sport. One of the downsides of playing a contact sport, however, is that it leads to injuries. I always had jammed fingers or sprained ankles, not to mention broken bones. If left untreated, these small injuries can turn into long lasting ailments. 

 

Do you know what the best treatment is for a sprained ankle? The answer is an ice bath for your foot. If you fill a bucket with ice and submerge your ankle into the icy depths, you can greatly reduce your recovery time. The only problem is that keeping your foot under ice is excruciatingly painful. If you can keep your foot in the ice for two solid minutes you will cut your recovery time in half. Leave it there an additional minute and you will be walking the next day. It’s a great remedy, but leaving your foot in ice for three minutes brings a level of pain most people are not willing to endure. Instead, they will hobble around for days or weeks, when all they needed was three minutes of pain. 

 

James 1:2-3 holds the title of MVP of the “easier said than done” verses in the Bible. James wrote, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.” That word patience, translated as steadfastness in newer versions, comes from a combination of two Greek words, meaning “to remain under.” James encourages us to count our trials as pure joy because the hardships we face produce within us the ability to remain under for a longer period of time. If we have come to recognize that many of our trials have been allowed by God in order to refine us, we can think of our trials as that bucket of ice; it isn’t pleasant, but it will bring about some good. 

 

When most people give up on the ice after a minute, they shortchange themselves and miss out of their healing. In a similar way, when we beg God to end our trials, that is like taking our foot out of the ice before it is time. We end up aggravating the injury, so to speak, going through more and more trials because we haven’t learned the lesson God is trying to teach us. Our trials build up our endurance and make us able to “remain under” the ice until the full and proper time. 

 

In his book When Life is Hard, pastor James MacDonald asks, “Why remain [under]? Because the nail that doesn’t remain under the hammer will never reach the goal; because the rough diamond that doesn’t remain under the chisel will never become a precious jewel; because the gold that doesn’t remain under the fire will never be a thing of beauty; because the Christian that doesn’t remain under the hand of God will never see His purpose for trail accomplished and will never experience the blessings on the other side.” 

 

Let me encourage you to remain under when you go through trials. They are a guarantee, so we might as well learn the lesson we are meant to learn. Instead of begging God to end the storm, ask Him what He is trying to teach you. 

 

Two Different Paths

 

In his classic poem The Road not Taken, Robert Frost described stopping at a fork in the road as he took a walk through the forest. The poem begins this way:

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

We often come to similar forks in the road in life. We can choose the worldly life, described in Psalm 1; this is the man who stands in the path of sinners and takes his seat among the ungodly. We can also choose the Christian life, where we put on the full armor of God and cultivate the fruit of the Spirit. The choice is completely up to us. 

 

Proverbs 5 mentions different paths. While giving advice to his son Rehoboam, Solomon told him to avoid the path of the adulterous woman because “her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell (v.5).” That word used for path in Hebrew refers to that which is movable, and has been translated elsewhere as slippery. Today we speak of something as a slippery slope, meaning that if Rehoboam began to spend time with this woman, before he knew it, he would be slipping and sliding down the path that would ruin his life. 

 

Sometimes in a store or mall I see signs posted, alerting shoppers that someone has recently mopped and the floor is still wet. That is what Solomon is doing here. He is putting out one of those yellow wet floor signs for Rehoboam, warning him that he is certain to fall if he isn’t careful. Instead of bruising his tailbone, Rehoboam could lose his life. 

 

At the end of that same chapter Solomon wrote, “For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and He ponders all his paths (v.21).” This word paths is different than the one in the fifth verse. This Hebrew word describes the path made by wagons and horses where there were no paved roads. This word came to speak of a person’s habits because following the same path over and over would develop grooves in the ground. A person’s paths were the things he did repetitiously. The warning is clear: do not follow the slippery path of the adulterous woman, because the Lord knows your paths. God knows full well the patterns in our lives. 

 

Jesus mentioned two roads—one broad and easy to traverse, and the other narrow and difficult. Many, He said, meaning the majority, travel the broad road, and few—the minority—travel the narrow.  

 

Frost concluded his poem this way:

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

Few people choose the straight and narrow road. It is unfortunately the road less traveled by, but choosing it makes all the difference.