Fighting Words

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

– Matthew 5:22 

The saying goes that you don’t let your mouth write a check that you can’t cash. In other words, don’t threaten to do something unless you’re willing to back it up with action. The message is that our tongues can get us into lots of hot water. And when we’re too quick to speak and even quicker to anger, catastrophe and regret can follow.

The sentiment of this sage advice is hardly new. About 2,000 years ago, James — the half-brother of Jesus — wrote the following New Testament passage:

“Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.”

Do these words hit close to home? Anger is one of mankind's earliest and strongest emotions, and it even played itself out early in the Bible through the world's first murder, when Cain killed his brother Abel.  

We couldn't control our anger back then in that quiet, agrarian setting, and we still can't today — sometimes in the form of petty arguments or even road rage on traffic-snarled highways. But Christ-followers are to live to a much higher standard and strive for gentleness as evidence that God lives through us. But keep in mind that gentleness isn't another word for wimpiness. Instead, biblical gentleness is the transformation of our innate anger into the power to do God's will in the world. A good definition is power focused on the positive.   

If you're a Christ-follower who's finding it hard to tame your tongue, take heart. The transformation from our old self into a new creation is a work in progress that's on God's timetable. It's a change that takes place bit by bit and day after day along each step of our faith-journey. But the problem is that the journey's pathway is narrow, twisting and full of unexpected hairpin curves. And when we don't keep our eyes on the destination, we tend to end up in the ditch.

Jesus also told his disciples to expect bumps and potholes in this road. "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come," he explained. "But woe to that person through whom they come."

It’s with the same mouth that we can both bless and curse others. And if we use our tongue the wrong way, we must accept the consequences. But the good news is that when we fail and sin, we can freely ask for help from our Savior, who lived the perfect, sin-free life to wash them all away: past, present and future. That's because Jesus paid in full when our mouth wrote that check.