Keep Your Forked Tongue Behind Your Teeth
The Power of Words to Burn Your Life Down
I love Gandalf’s scathing rebuke of Wormtongue in The Two Towers when he said, “keep your forked tongue behind your teeth!”
The Bible’s description of the tongue’s destructive power is similar. There’s a potential Wormtongue in all of us, deceiving, grumbling, and burning down people’s lives and reputations.
The ability to communicate with words is one of the most powerful gifts God has given us. They shape our lives, our perceptions, and even the reality we inhabit. As Christians, we must bring our thoughts and speech into subjection to Jesus Christ.
God’s word has the power to create. In Genesis 1, God created the cosmos by speaking words. In John 1, Jesus Christ is described as being the embodied word of God in human flesh, the ultimate self-disclosure of God. Scripture is the written word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, through which God’s ongoing, “living and active” (Heb 4:12) word is imparted to his people, and the “implanted word” lives in our hearts (James 1:21).
Similarly, human words have power to create. We cannot create ex nihilo like God can, but our words create perceptions of reality we all live in, so it is vital that the perceptions of reality we create with our words be true to the reality of the world as it actually is.
For example, if you tell a child, “you’re worthless,” the child will believe it to be true and will live his or her life under the dark cloud of self-perception you created for them. Words like that can haunt them for many years, shaping their actions and decisions in incalculable ways. Simply put, words are not neutral. They carry immense power for good or evil.
The Words of Bible Teachers
This one major reason why few men are called to be Bible teachers (James 3:1), even though the calling itself is noble and desirable. Bible teachers create a spiritual reality in the minds of their hearers; they are responsible for accurately representing the word of truth and the way of salvation.
What a massive responsibility! When I see people ignorantly pontificate online about God, I wonder if they realize what they’re doing. James 3:1 says “we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” These people are heaping judgment upon themselves by misrepresenting God on a public platform. This is a high-stakes endeavor, as eternal souls hang in the balance.
The Tongue is the Index of the Heart
But James doesn’t limit his teaching to teachers. Broadening the scope, he says, “we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle his whole body” (James 3:2). In other words, the tongue is an index of the heart.
Jesus said the same thing: “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt 12:34). The words you say are a window into your true character. A man or woman who gossips about others is not only sinning with their mouths, but they are exposing a darkness in their hearts as well. They are setting brush fires in the forest of peoples’ lives, threatening to burn someone’s reputation to the ground.
One who has self-control over his words is more likely to have self-control over his whole life.
Words Can Unleash the Power of Hell
James uses vivid metaphors to illustrate this: a small bit guides a horse, a tiny rudder steers a massive ship, and the tongue, though small, “boasts of great things” (James 3:5). Yet, this same tongue can be “a fire, a world of unrighteousness… [and] set on fire by hell” (v6). It’s a “restless evil, full of deadly poison” (v8). It is capable of blessing God and cursing those made in His image (v9). This verbal duplicity “ought not to be so” (v10).
James doesn’t mince words about the destructive power of the tongue. How many relationships, marriages, and even churches have been burned to the ground because of words people said? How many people have unleashed the power of hell in their own lives by careless words they’ve said?
While there are countless ways we sin with our speech, I’ll focus on three common examples: deception, grumbling, and gossip.
Three Ways Your Words Can Burn Your Life Down
Deception. Deception violates the ninth commandment, which says, “You shall not bear false witness” (Exodus 20:16). This includes a range of sins, such as blatant lies, half-truths, and so-called “white lies.” A blatant lie is simply saying something that’s not true.
For example, you might say, “I can’t make it to small group tonight; I’m not feeling well.” People lie to get out of obligations all the time, claiming vague illnesses as an excuse that aren’t real. They just don’t want to do something so they say they’re sick. If they’re a little tired and don’t feel like going, they’ll say, “I’m not feeling well” or something. Call it what it is: it’s a lie. You’re deceiving the other person because it makes you look better. You’ve exploited their trust by creating a false reality for them. This is a sin. Christians must speak and live the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable: “Let your ‘yes’ be yes and your ‘no’ be no” (Matthew 5:37).
Half-truths are particularly insidious: you share just enough truth to create a false perception, but the deception is in the omission of key details. The person who does this tells himself, “I didn’t say anything untrue.” But they’ve used selective truth telling to create a false perception for the other person, forcing them to accept and live in a false reality. How is that loving? Deception, even in small doses, dishonors God and harms our souls.
Grumbling. Grumbling was a major problem in OT times but commonly overlooked in our day. Philippians 2:14 says, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing.” Grumbling can be defined as pervasively negative speech rooted in a discontented heart.
The discontent is key. We grumble when we’re discontent with life and we feel entitled to something better. It’s the verbal expression of an ungrateful heart.
We can complain about life, saying things like, “I’m so busy,” “I don’t have any friends,” or “I don’t like my job.” We can complain about other people, saying things like, “my husband doesn’t pay enough attention to me,” “my kids won’t listen,” “I don’t like her, she’s fake.” We can complain about God, saying things like “God is holding out on me,” “God hasn’t answered my prayers,” “my church isn’t feeding me, the leadership isn’t doing a good job.” And we can grumble about ourselves, saying things like, “I’m a screw up,” “I’m too fat/thin,” “I’m too tall/short,” “I’m not good enough.” Grumbling about ourselves is a form of sinful self-pity camouflaged as humility.
Grumbling creates a false reality of entitlement and ingratitude, accusing God of not doing enough. Grumbling is a destructive spiritual cancer that can trigger a social chain reaction of discontent in a church. Misery loves company, and grumblers are miserable people.
If someone is edified and content by a pastor’s preaching, a grumbling friend might trigger feelings of discontent in them, even making them feel naive that they enjoy it. The grumbler is like the movie critic that points out all the flaws in a movie you just watched and liked. You read the review and think, “Oh, I didn’t notice that. I guess it wasn’t such a good movie after all.” That’s the effect a grumbler has on other people. He or she promotes discontentment in others.
Of course, not all grumbling is expressed verbally. Some of it lives in the heart as an inner dialogue that runs through our minds throughout the day. We should mortify a grumbling attitude by focusing on God’s gifts by giving thanks to him.
Gossip. Gossip is perhaps the most seductive sin of the tongue. Proverbs 18:8 describes the words of a gossip (or “whisperer”) as “delicious morsels” that sink deep into the heart. Gossip feels good because it makes us feel better about our own flaws by highlighting the failures of others.
And don’t disguise gossip as a “prayer request.” Many whispering Wormtongues have burned down people’s lives by simply sharing prayer requests. If you think the situation needs more prayer, then pray for it twice yourself. Don’t share gossip in the form of prayer requests.
It is unloving to use someone else’s struggles to prop ourselves up. Proverbs 16:28 says, “A whisperer separates close friends.” Gossip creates a false reality about other people which damages relationships and reputations. Even if the gossip is true, more often than not, it’s often none of our business. Proverbs 26:20 reminds us, “For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.” Stop the gossip, and the fire of division dies down.
We All Stumble in Many Ways
Tucked in the beginning of James’ teaching on the destructive power of the tongue, he gives a brief word that should encourage us. He says, “we all stumble in many ways” (v2). That’s not a throwaway line. It’s a gracious acknowledgement that sins of the tongue are an ongoing battle with sin that we will wage the rest of our lives.
And by using the word “we,” James includes himself in this. Only our Lord Jesus Christ was without sin. For the rest of us, we’ve got potentially forked tongues behind our teeth, ready to spew destructive venom if we’re not on guard. When we do sin with our tongues, we should confess it, repent of it, and receive God’s grace by faith.
As a pastor, I’m preaching to myself as well. I’m in the word-speaking business, I will be judged for every careless word, and Bible teachers are subject to stricter judgment.
So I join with James in acknowledging, “we all stumble in many ways.” At various points in my life, I’ve lied, grumbled, and gossiped. I’ve hurt others with my words. But thanks be to God, there’s grace for that at the cross of Christ. And there’s forgiveness and reconciliation in Christ for those times when I’ve sinned against others.
When we confess our sins and repent, He forgives us, calls us to walk in obedience, giving us the power of his Spirit to do so.
Escaping the Trap of Loser Theology
My King’s Domain Conference talk is now available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple. This thumbnail looks like I’m describing a fish I just caught.
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