The tongue is a good gift from God—but it also can be a destructive troublemaker. In this podcast, Scott Brown discusses how the tongue can poison and devour, but also how it can be tamed to encourage others through singing, hearty counsel, thoughtful admonishment, and more. Not only can our tongue be used to bring praise to God, but it can give “beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life” to our friends, family, and others in need. 

The tongue is a good gift, and the tongue is also a troublemaker. Now One of the things that happens when a person becomes a Christian is that they clean up their language. The first thing that happens, they stop cussing. And it's really hard. But then they find out that the problem with their tongue is a lot deeper than saying a few cuss words.

James says no one can tame the tongue. It's a it's a restless evil full of deadly poison. But the tongue is also a wonderful gift in the sense that it allows us to praise God, it allows us to encourage people. The tongue is a tree of life. It's not just a deadly poison like James says.

It's not just a troublemaker, but it's also really a source of blessing in which we use it to speak to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord. And that's what happens when you become a Christian. Your conversation changes. You start talking about different things and you start talking about things differently because your heart has changed and there's this progressive yet slow process of taming the tongue. And yeah, of course you quit cussing pretty early, but there are all kinds of other problems that the tongue creates.

The Bible teaches Christians that their tongues are to love one another, to live in harmony with one another, to greet one another, to stop passing judgment on one another, to not to bite and devour one another, but to admonish one another and encourage one another daily. The 50 one-anothers, almost all of them, are really activated, put into service by the government of the tongue. So the tongue really is a good gift. On the other hand, it's a troublemaker. And the Bible gives us terrifying examples of what the tongue can do.

James chapter 3, 1 through 12, you know, the tongue is a fire, it's a deadly, it's an evil, it's a poison. But on the other hand, God says that your tongue is like a rudder. It takes the ship wherever it would go. God has given us words. In fact, our whole religion is based on words.

We have a word-based religion. And the words that we speak determine the direction of everything in our lives. And what a treasure it is though, to have the most beautiful words, beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. That's what the Christian has in his church and in his home and in his workplace wonderful words of life. Scripture Applied is a production of Church and Family Life.

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