My view of words was that there are good words and bad words but that most speech is neutral. After all, how can you sin ordering a cheese steak hoagie?
But the more I go, the more I see spoken words as falling into either what “gathers” or what “scatters.” ...It is a rare person who will recognize himself in a moral example. We are sure we would never have been the Pharisees or Job’s wife or Elisha’s servant Gehazi. We paint waxed mustaches on them, while we ourselves, by contrast, do not grumble but “share” or “discuss” or “confess” or make “prayer requests.”
It helps me to think of speech as a zero-sum game: It is important not only to avoid outright sinful words, but also worthless and insipid words, where words of life might have seized an opportunity for the kingdom. Jesus’ bar is higher than ours. We feel we’ve had a good day if we didn’t swear, lie, or gossip. Jesus says, “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Matthew 12:36).
I hate to think of the times I went for a cheap laugh rather than turn a conversation to eternally weighty things.
Andree Seu
