The other night, as I was walking up the sidewalk to ECV Rooker Hall for a team Bible study, I couldn’t help but briefly overhear a conversation between two girls walking by. The object of their conversation was apparently a friend or acquaintance they shared and what was coming out of their mouths was rather unpleasant. I walked on thinking how sorry I felt for that poor unsuspecting person they just verbally slaughtered with their hateful tongues. How often do these sort of conversations happen in our circles of people we hang out with? 

My guess is quite often. It usually happens within small groupings, particularly within female friendships. Although I’m sure the guys have the occasional buddy-bashing comments and display testosterone-filled anger towards one-another, I’m focusing in here on women because I’ve experienced these situations a lot as a woman, and I know how we can be! 

My first real taste of tongue-lashing came when I was in college with my volleyball team. Any time you leave 12-15 girls in a locker room together or stuff ‘em in a van and ride them across the state lines for three or more hours, you’re gonna get trouble! We would complain about our professors, our parents, boyfriends, etc. And once we got into our hotel rooms in smaller groups, we’d begin to talk about everything that aggravated us about the coaches, our teammates, and even our trainers. (If you’re reading this and you’re on a team, please don’t verbally butcher your sports medicine trainer because he/she has to work very hard and they are so unappreciated as it is!) 

After college, it didn’t end unfortunately. I took a seven-year stint with high school teaching job in North Carolina and made the mistake one year of going on a week-long Spring Break trip with some women I worked with. We rented a beach house in Charleston, SC and every day, around noon time, we’d drag our lawn chairs, sun screen, and towels out to the beach to worship the sun for eight-plus hours. What proceeded was a long, tongue-bashing session on every employee we worked with who was not there. While our bodies were burning blazing red from the sun, our tongues were igniting their own fires as we maliciously humored ourselves with our comments about our co-workers. Sticks and stones may break my bones… but I’d rather have a severe beating than be the object of the tongue-lashings that were firing that day on the beach about people we knew and worked with.

Well, when this happens, “it just shouldn’t be this way!” Why? The Bible has authority to teach us some stuff about what comes out of our mouths. 

Let us reason together, shall we? 

Tongue-bashing your teammates will destroy your team.“Now when we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we also guide the whole animal. And consider ships: though very large and driven by fierce winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So too, though the tongue is a small part of the body it boasts great things. Consider how large a forest a small fire ignites. And the tongue is a fire. The tongue, a world of unrighteousness, is placed among the parts of our bodies; it pollutes the whole body, sets the course of life on fire, and is set on fire by hell. For every creature---animal or bird, reptile or fish---is tamed and had been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who are made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers (& sisters), these things should not be this way.”-James 3:3-10 

Tongue-bashing is detestable to God.“Don’t you realize that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is eliminated? But what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and this defiles a man. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies.” Matthew 15:17-19

We will be judged by our words.“…How can you speak good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. A good man/woman produces good things from his/her storeroom of good, and an evil man/woman produces evil things from his/her storeroom of evil. I tell you that on the day of judgment people will give an account for every careless word they speak. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12:34-37

Many people have different opinions about Jesus Christ. ‘Opinions are like belly-buttons, everybody’s got one.’Some people state that Jesus was a great moral teacher, and “If all those Christians just followed his teachings, the world would be a better place!” Well, that’s true, but I have also come to know that what the Bible says about Jesus Christ is absolutely reliable and true: He is the Son of God, He is God, and everybody—desperately--- needs Him as their Savior and Lord! The only true way we’re going to be able to control our tongue is if our heart and minds are changed and surrendered to Him. Jesus doesn’t just want to be your teacher, He wants your heart!

“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9

When I think back to the way I used to be before God came to live inside of me through His Holy Spirit, I realize more and more just how sinful I was, and, how easy it can be to go back to my old ways of thinking. But now, I have the power to overcome those temptations because Christ has forgiven me and I am His and He is mine. 

“But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.” Romans 6:17 

When you go on Spring Break next week, whether you’re going to be in town with your team or out of town enjoying the beach, take inventory of what comes out of your mouth and examine your heart. Where is your allegiance? To yourself, a person, a principle, or Christ?