Speech

So yesterday, I was preparing for my faith group lesson. We have currently been going through Titus, generally taking a section as broken down in the MacArthur Study Bible. Originally, I was going to do Titus 3:1-8.

Then, that whole thing about the Word of God being sharper than a two-edged sword, dividing between the soul and the spirit, came to light.

The verses we actually got to were verses 1 and 2: "Remind them to submit to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no-one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all meekness to all men".

In doing this study, I consulted Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible. Here's a sample of where we ended up - for me, the most condemning part, the question of speaking evil of no-one:

“To speak evil of none, unjustly and falsely, or unnecessarily, without call, and when it may do hurt but no good to the person himself or to any other. If no good can be spoken, rather than speak evil unnecessarily, say nothing. We must never take pleasure in speaking ill of others, nor make the worst of any thing, but the best we can. We must not go up and down as tale-bearers, carrying ill-natured stories, to the prejudice of our neighbour’s good name the destruction of brotherly love. Misrepresentations, or insinuations of bad intention, or of hypocrisy in what is known, things out of our reach or cognizance, these come with reach of this prohibition. As this evil is too common, so it is of great malignity.” (p. 2373).

Talk about being hit between the eyes. Yes, perhaps I don't engage in directly saying evil about others, but how often to I insinuate, say something when I should say nothing, read into circumstances that which is not there, give interpretations when I don't know.

The thing which I think bothers me more is how often I try to conceal it from myself by couching it in terms of being informed, or honest, or "getting a complaint off my chest." To read Henry, I'm just fooling myself.

But isn't that the nature of so much of our ingrained sin - that we conceal it from ourselves by the excuses that we make? As the Apostle Paul said, "But if we judged ourselves truly, we should not be judged" (I Corinthians 11:31) (Although interestingly enough, the Greek is more to "If we discerned ourselves/judged ourselves correctly, we would not be discerned/judged). Did I judge myself honestly today -or hide my sin under a layer of intentional ignorance?