Words are Powerful
By Dr. Aaron Farrant, Head of School
This year at The Christ School we are focusing on how we can reflect God to the world. For September, we are discussing how we can reflect God’s encouragement; how we can build others up.
God compared our tongue, and in essence our words, in James chapter three to a small rudder on a large ship or a bit in the mouth of a mighty horse. Words seem small, and can roll off our tongues often without us even thinking about them, but they have a huge impact. Words influence how other people feel and what they think. God knew this when he created us and he tells us how to use words in our month’s theme verse, Ephesians 4:29, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”
Famously in Scripture, when Jesus was asked what is the most important commandment, the most important thing, he said to love God with everything you have and love others like yourself. Essentially, live a life focused on bringing glory to God (that’s how we express our love to him) and helping others.
In Ephesians 4:29, God starts by saying, “Don’t let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth.” We should not be using words that don’t align with God’s nature of being loving, pure, holy, righteous. We are called instead to use our words to build others up. To love people as Christ taught us means to speak things that benefit those who hear us. Many times we use our words to be negative, to complain about things not going our way, to criticize someone who did something we didn’t like, or we put others down to make ourselves feel better or to get a laugh.
In our society where using our words to tear down people who don’t agree with you has become the norm, God has called us to do something different. He has called us to consciously choose words that build others up, words that benefit others. My prayer for our students, staff and you is to be the recipient of people who are choosing their words to build you up and that you will choose to only use words that are a benefit to those who listen.