The First Baptist Church of Redlands
TA PE S T RY Woven Together In Love: Colossians 2:2
OCTOBER 2015
ISSUE No. 10
A MESSAGE FROM PASTOR RICHARD
The Taming of the Tongue In the recently published book, The Rhetorical Leadership of Fulton J. Sheen, Norman Vincent Peale and Billy Graham in the Age of Extremes by Timothy Sherwood, there is a story of two altar boys. One was an altar boy in a church in a small village in Croatia at the beginning of the 20th century. His name was Josip Broz. One day the young boy was having difficulty fulfilling his duties as altar boy. The impatient priest slapped the boy and told him to leave the altar and never come back. The boy whose last name was Tito never did go back to the church, later became an atheist and the Communist leader of Yugoslavia after World War II. About the same time another altar boy named Peter John served mass at a Cathedral in Peoria, Illinois. One day he dropped the glass wine cruet. He said “There is no atomic explosion that can equal in intensity of noise as a wine cruet falling on the marble floor of a cathedral in the presence of a bishop. I was frightened to death.” However, the bishop with a twinkle in his eye, told the boy not to worry and gently whispered: “Someday you will be just what I am.” The boy grew up to be Fulton J. Sheen, one of the Catholic Church’s most eloquent spokespersons for Christ. In the 50’s he hosted a very popular television program, “Life is
Worth Living” and authored more than fifty inspirational books. What damage the tongue can do. William Shakespeare said ”He who takes from me my good name, takes that which enriches him and makes me poor indeed.” The great Protestant theologian John Calvin, said, ”the only thing more damaging than a loose cannon is a slippery and loose tongue.” Mother Teresa said, “Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.” There is also much said in Scriptures about this important subject, especially in Proverbs and in the book of James. “If any think they are religious and do not bridle their tongues, they are deceiving their hearts and their religion is worthless.” - James 1:26 In addition to other things James says that the tongue is like a small fire that can ignite a forest fire, that it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. How descriptive these are of the damaging use of the tongue. Examples: verbal abuse in the home, bullying in school, ridiculing or spreading of rumors in the work place or even church, put downs of people of another race, or even of another sexual orientation. Words can do big-time harm but they also have the power to do incredible good. The Scriptures
“...the only thing more damaging than a loose cannon is a slippery and loose tongue.” - John Calvin remind us to “be kind and compassionate to one another.” How important it is to do this with our words, telling those close to us how much we love them, calling hurting and lonely people to let them know we are thinking of them or by listening to others in an nonjudgmental way and then speaking words that are encouraging, building them up. Let me close with this anonymous thought provoking quote: “Our words, as Christians, should protect, affirm and celebrate the dignity and worth of every human being.” May God by His grace, help us to do this.
Richard