Words – audio

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As a preacher and as human being, I use a lot of words.

That’s probably part of the reason this passage has puzzled – and scared – me. Maybe it’s bothered you a little as well.

But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the Day of Judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned – Matthew 12:36–37

I’m pretty sure I use quite a few “careless” words, probably every day. Don’t you?

Maybe an off-handed remark to your spouse or child, perhaps an off-the-cuff comment to a co-worker. Some of our words are carefully thought out, while many, probably most, aren’t. What does Jesus mean?

Did he intend to imply that our innocent small talk is wrong, like when we’re talking about last night’s rain or next week’s game? I don’t think so. It helps to read what the Lord said just before:

Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things – Matthew 12:33–35

Jesus is saying that our words matter because they reflect our hearts. Good people say good things, while bad hearts produce evil speech.

There’s an important implication here: we learn more about our hearts from what we say without thinking than we do by looking at our carefully rehearsed speech. This means that you’d learn more about who I really am by hearing how I speak to people conversationally than you do by listening to this invitation. I’ve reworked the words on this page several times, but my “careless” words—the ones I use in normal conversation—more likely reflect the real me.

What about you? Are your words too critical? Do they build up or tear down? Are they positive or negative?

Our words matter, but mostly because they say something about our hearts. We don’t really fix our speech by learning to speak more nicely and be more honest. Our speech gets fixed when our hearts grow closer to Jesus.

God cares more about what’s inside us than he does about what comes out of us.

So we need to work on our hearts by spending time with the Lord. Loving him more, praising him more, wanting to please him more.

What Jesus said should cause us to think before we speak, but it should especially cause us to ask him to take control of our hearts. That’s where the words, good or bad, come from.