Column by Bro. Terry Ivy
“Whoever speaks the truth gives honest evidence, but a false witness utters deceit.” (Pro. 12:17) Words, words, words. The most basic and yet the most essential element to communication. Whether through eye contact, sign language, or verbal expressions, life is impossible without words to communicate.
The world constantly tells believers that we speak too boldly or shouldn’t criticize or judge. They insist that the church must sit in a corner and say nothing. Why? So that our voices do not awaken their conscience and bring the Holy Spirit’s conviction to bear on their soul. And sad to say, much of the modern church has bitten into the lies of society, and we’ve become voiceless and wordless pillow prophets—helping men and women continue down the road of biblical rebellion while all we say is “God loves you.”
The Christian message is called ‘The Gospel’—which means good news. It is good news because there is some bad news! The bad news is that all men have sinned against God and deserve hell. There is nothing we can do to redeem or rescue ourselves. If the world exploded and we all woke up in hell, that is what we deserve. However, there is good news! God became flesh and dwelt among us. Through his death on the Cross, Jesus took our sins and removed us from the penalty of judgment. What do we do to experience this good news? We place our faith in Christ alone by repenting and turning from the ways of the world to follow him.
In order to communicate the Gospel, we must use words! Words about sin, words about truth, words about repentance, words about humility, words about forgiveness, words about faith. Nothing is more loving than to speak truth to someone walking in sin. They may say, “You are judging me!” However, we must keep speaking. When we share God’s truth about what they are doing, it is the Lord judging them, not us. Our voices must not be silent. God loves them so much that he wants you and me to speak the truth so that they will repent and experience the love and redemption of Christ.
We must be careful that our words are measured out and that we use wisdom to select the words needed to properly communicate. For example, most of us remember the old show “The Lone Ranger.” The masked lawman and his faithful sidekick, Tonto, were frequent visitors in living rooms across America when I was growing up. They seemed to have such a respect for one another. The Lone Ranger called his Indan scout Tonto, and Tonto called the Lone Ranger “Kemosabe.” (Pronounced Key-Moe-Sa-Bee).
All those years, I thought they were being respectful to one another. Come to find out that Kemosabe means “idiot” in the Apache language, and Tonto means “stupid” in Spanish. So they were calling each other idiot and stupid!
We must have wisdom when communicating to others so we will use appropriate words lest we create unnecessary division. Words matter when presenting the Gospel and when we relate truth to others. Make sure we are not calling them Kemosabe. Let us be… careful with words!
