{"id":31292,"date":"2022-09-10T15:24:36","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/leaders-are-you-stewarding-your-words-well\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T15:24:36","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:24:36","slug":"leaders-are-you-stewarding-your-words-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/leaders-are-you-stewarding-your-words-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaders, Are You Stewarding Your Words Well?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash <\/p>\n

By Daniel Darling<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s a bit ironic that the human race\u2019s descent into darkness began with the serpent\u2019s own twisted misrepresentation of God\u2019s words of instruction to His image-bearers. Words, after humanity\u2019s fall into sin, can now be used either to injure or inspire. <\/p>\n

This is why King David prayed that the words of his mouth be \u201cacceptable\u201d in the sight of God. In a fallen world, we often don\u2019t even understand the weight of what we say or, in this age, what we type.<\/p>\n

David\u2019s son, Solomon, understood well the power of words. The wisest man in all the world often reflected on language in his proverbs:<\/p>\n

“There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts,
but the tongue of the wise brings healing” (Proverbs 12:18 ESV).<\/p>\n

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
and those who love it will eat its fruits” (Proverbs 18:21 ESV).<\/p>\n

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Death and life are in the power of the tongue. And, we might say today, the power of the thumb.<\/p>\n

Words can create or destroy; they can uplift or condemn. They can reflect the Word by which God has spoken, or they can echo the whispers of the serpent. So powerful are words, the Apostle James tells Christian leaders that \u201cno person can tame\u201d them (James 3:8).<\/p>\n

If Solomon saw fit to warn the people of God in the Old Testament of the power of words, and if James saw fit to warn the early church of the power of words, how much more today should God\u2019s people heed what God is speaking to us about how we speak?<\/p>\n

We live in a world with a vast and seemingly unlimited economy of words. There are more ways to communicate today than at any time in human history.<\/p>\n

It may seem at times that stewarding our communication, especially the easy and free way we communicate online, is next to impossible. We might say with James, \u201cWho can tame this beast?\u201d But we should remember that those destructive half-truths in the garden were not the final word. <\/p>\n

Jesus, God\u2019s Final Word, has spoken a word over those who have turned to Him in faith. He declares His word that we are justified and we are transformed. Jesus has conquered that unruly, death-dealing beast, and has given us God\u2019s Holy Spirit to help us tame our tongues and our thumbs. <\/p>\n

I’m less interested in litigating screen time and algorithms\u2014though that’s a discussion worth having. Instead, I want to consider the inevitable task of communicating in the internet age.<\/p>\n

Incivility has been with us since Eden, but the immediacy and availability of digital platforms seems to exacerbate this temptation. Alan Jacobs is right when he says the farther humans get away from face-to-face conversations, the greater the opportunity for sinful speech. <\/p>\n

Today, that distance is even more pronounced, as we can spar back and forth with complete strangers, whom we know only by an avatar.<\/p>\n

\u201cTechnologies of communication that allow us to overcome the distances of space also allow us to neglect the common humanity we share with the people we now find inhabiting our world,\u201d Jacobs writes. I don\u2019t think the mediums are always value-neutral.<\/p>\n

And yet we Christians who believe in original sin can\u2019t quite get away with blaming Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and any other platforms\u2014as if we’re helpless in this digital age, and as if the way we communicate doesn\u2019t originate from within. Jesus reminds us, \u201cOut of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Luke 6:45).\u201d Or the thumbs tweet or record or post.<\/p>\n

The internet isn’t going away anytime soon. Platforms may change, but the call for us to steward words well is the same as it was in the beginning.<\/p>\n

May we see a kind of revolution of kindness, so that we may pray with Paul, \u201cLet our speech be always gracious\u201d (Colossians 4:6).<\/p>\n

DANIEL DARLING (@dandarling) <\/strong>is vice president of communications for NRB, and teaching and discipleship pastor at Green Hill Church in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. He is the author of several books, including <\/em>A Way with Words from which this article is excerpted.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Dig Deeper at Lifeway.com<\/div>\n
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A Way With Words: Using Our Online Conversations for Good<\/h2>\n

Daniel Darling<\/p>\n

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See also  What Sparks Evangelical Generosity? Discipleship<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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FIND OUT MORE <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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What Do Pastors Believe About the End Times? What Do Pastors Believe About the Book of Revelation? 3 Ways to Reach Non-Religious People in Your Community <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash By Daniel Darling It’s a bit ironic that the human race\u2019s descent into darkness began with the serpent\u2019s own twisted misrepresentation of God\u2019s words of instruction to His image-bearers. Words, after humanity\u2019s fall into sin, can now be used either to injure or inspire. This is why King David … Continue reading “Leaders, Are You Stewarding Your Words Well?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}