The Power of Words

I’m a self-confessing word nerd. Sometimes, as recently as earlier today, I find myself looking up a word, only to still be “reading the dictionary” 10 minutes later! But, in defense of my love of words, it was God who made humans with this amazing capacity to use words to say things, to be told things – to communicate. It is even possible for God to use words to communicate to us (Isaiah 55:8-11) and for us to communicate with Him (see the Book of Psalms).

Words have what is sometimes called marked and unmarked meanings. The whole process of interpreting everything from the article about the Braves game yesterday in today’s paper to the Bible itself. Our political culture seems to be in constant banter about how the words of the Constitution are to be interpreted.

I think I have at least one friend among the writers of Scripture when it comes to be a word nerd. In Ephesians 4:29, tucked in among a whole slew of descriptive phrases about the behavior of those who follow Jesus, Paul says, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” (NASB) Unless I’m reading those words incorrectly, if a word doesn’t edify, it isn’t wholesome.

That’s not, however, how this particular collection of words are often used. A friend in ministry told me about a youth minister who overheard an elder in the church say a naughty word, when a wrench he was using to fix a door closer slipped and he banged his knuckles pretty badly. This particular elder was a godly man - known far and wide for his generosity and his willingness to do whatever needed to be done. At the time of this incident, he was actually funding the rent on a gymnasium for the youth program of his church that wasn’t budgeted at the time.

While I’m not suggesting that he should have said the word he said as his knuckles hit a sharp edge and started bleeding profusely, it wasn’t the worst word I’ve ever heard. The youth minister was quick to point out that the church shouldn’t have an elder who used “unwholesome words,” quoting this very verse.

In less than a week, the whole church knew that an elder had said a bad word – despite the fact that the only person who heard it was the youth minister. The only way that could have happened is that the youth minister let others know.
Whose words were “unwholesome?”

In Miroslav Volf’s The End of Memory, he points out that even by remembering things incorrectly, we end up bearing false witness against another person. When we say those over-stated memories out loud, we use “unwholesome words.”

The point isn’t that words don’t matter – even words that in our cultural setting are viewed as “bad words.” I’m not advocating that it is appropriate for Christians to speak crudely and in impolite ways. But I do think it is possible for a person to never use one of the “four letter words” we identify in our culture as crude and impolite, but still have an “unwholesome” vocabulary. We don’t have to use four-letter words to be guilty of not edifying others with our words.

May our words be signs of the grace of God – both “marked and unmarked.”