I Still Talk Too Much

I sat at my desk tonight with my son's Wizard of Oz homework that I didn't finish grading and a sink that still had dishes in it. The kids are finally asleep. That's when James 3 usually shows up, because that's when I replay the day and hear myself.

I was in a men's group last month and I walked out thinking I had been helpful, or at the very least not hurtful. Driving home I remembered a sentence I threw in that didn't need to be said. It wasn't so much a lie as much as it was a sideways joke that did not land well. It made someone else look a little smaller and I sounded like a pompous jerk. That's the tongue. James isn't talking about strangers on the internet first. He's talking about men who open their mouths in the church.

I've stumbled in what I said more times than I can count. I still do. I'm not writing this as a man who has the bit in. I'm writing it as a husband who has had to apologize to his wife in the kitchen, and as a dad who has snapped at a child over something that wasn't worth the volume. (By the way, I apologize to my children all the time as well.)

James says the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness, staining the whole body, set on fire by hell. He says no human being can tame it. That's not a slogan for a men's breakfast. That's me at 9:30 in the morning, already knowing I can't make myself holier by trying harder not to talk. If I could bridle myself, I wouldn't need Christ. I do need Him. Justification is by faith, not by keeping my comments short. Union with Christ is the only reason I have any hope of a quieter mouth tomorrow.

So when do I bridle it?

When I'm about to teach and I haven't sat under Scripture myself. When I'm at church and I want to fill the air with an opinion. When a brother is absent and the story would travel well. When anger is already in my chest and I'm looking for a sentence that will win to cut a loved one down. When I'm correcting my kids and I start stacking words because I want them to feel how right I am. When my wife is already worn out from her day and doesn't need to hear me complain about mine. When my pride bubbles to the top, my ego gets the best of me, and I want to rub my ability or knowledge in someone else's face. That's a lot of the week.

I don't mean never speak. The Lord didn't save us to be mute. He gave us mouths for prayer, for reading Scripture aloud at the table, for singing on the Lord's Day, for confessing Christ, for telling the truth in love to one another. Believer's baptism is a public word with water, immersion, not a private feeling. The gathered church is a speaking people. We need that.

Acts 2 sits next to James in my notes because I used to treat Pentecost like a license. Tongues of fire, many languages, a crowd hearing the mighty works of God. That was not unbridled chatter. That was the Spirit making the gospel plain to people who needed to hear it. Peter stood up and preached Christ crucified and risen. Three thousand were added.

The tongue was not the hero. The Word was.

If the Spirit is at work, speech serves the Scriptures. It doesn't run ahead of them. Sola Scriptura isn't a brand. It means I don't get to invent heat and call it zeal. Sovereignty means God doesn't need my extra paragraph to accomplish what He intends. I still forget that by Tuesday.

This has been my routine as of late: I show up, I try to keep quiet, and just when I think I have that mastered, the look on my face gives away what I want to say. I cannot trust what I want to say because the look on my face will often tell you before I can. I will often skip social gatherings because I do not trust what might come out. That's not holiness. That's fear of man mixed with a little self-knowledge. It is far better to open the Bible, pray, and keep the comments short. Better to ask forgiveness when I don't.

The fruit James lists at the end of the chapter is peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy. Wisdom from above. I don't produce that in myself. I receive it the same way I receive everything else, by looking to Christ, hearing the Word, praying, and staying with the church even when I'd rather stay home and nurse a sharp sentence.

I'll grade the rest Wizard of Oz in the morning. I'll try to keep my mouth from adding a world of unrighteousness to a house that already has enough noise. I will fail again. Then I'll go back to the same Christ who justified the ungodly, including the ones who talk too much.