“Watch Your Tongue!”

“Watch Your Tongue!”
The year 2020 will go down in history for the COVID-19 pandemic and its controversial origins. The year will also be remembered in that the COVID-19 caused us not to know who and what to believe anymore.
The great names in scientific medicines whom we looked up to confused us the more by telling us one thing this month and changing the story the next month. Specialists told us that face masks were not necessary and few months later we were asked to wear facemasks. Etc!
Today we are not agreed as to whether hydroxycloroquine is a cure to COVID-19 or not. All these because some teachers open their mouths when silence would have been preferable.
James writes not many should presume to be teachers because those who teach will be judged more strictly. Teachers “stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.”
What we say is a window to our entire being. That is why Jesus says what comes out of a person’s mouth is an overflow of the content of the heart, and that is what makes one unclean.
It is prudent to say, “I reserve my comment,s” but teachers, especially teachers of the word may not always reserve their comments.
James says all kinds of animals, birds and reptiles “are being tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” We were taught the rhyme about a wise old owl, “the more he heard, the less he spoke, the less he spoke, the more he heard…” The rhyme ends with the question, “why can’t we be like that wise old owl?”
A lot of evil in the world is provoked by the tongue which is actually an agent of the devil. The tongue is “a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.”
The warning, “watch your tongue” is very important to us all. What we say can damage our reputations and personalities for life. We must always weigh our words, seek inspiration from the Holy Spirit before uttering God’s words so that we do not unteach people with unsound doctrine.
We should not use the same tongue to “praise our Lord and Father, and with it curse men who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing…this should not be” (Jm.3:1-10).
Tame your tongue for your whole body to be a reflection of God’s light.
Weekend prayer: Holy Spirit work in me to tame my tongue so that my whole body should reflect God’s light, to teach your word, to praise you and not to curse anybody. Amen!
Have a blessed weekend! Peace be with you!