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And, we know, the tongue is a principal, maybe the principal, disturber of the peace. While we may say tritely, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me," the opposite is true. Words can hurt, and words can lead to a dissonance that brings much suffering into our lives together. Bluntly truthful is this Christian scripture below, from the wisdom book James, the sole wisdom treatise in the Christian New Testament. One thing of special note is the insight that the misuse of speech is not natural, does not accord with the consistency of nature itself. To speak rightly, then, is to speak in harmony with nature, as nature reflects to us the harmony in the Light.
So it is with the tongue: small as it is, it can boast about great things.
We put a bit into the mouth of a horse to make it obey us, and we are able to make it go where we want. Or think of a ship: big as it is and driven by such strong winds, it can be steered by a very small rudder, and it goes wherever the pilot wants it to go. Just think how large a forest can be set on fire by a tiny flame! And the tongue is like a fire. It is a world of wrong, occupying its place in our bodies and spreading evil through our whole being. It sets on fire the entire course of our existence with the fire that comes to it from hell itself. We humans are able to tame and have tamed all other creatures~wild animals and birds, reptiles and fish. But no one has ever been able to tame the tongue. It is evil and uncontrollable, full of deadly poison. We use it to give thanks to our Lord and Father and also to curse other people, who are created in the likeness of God. Words of thanksgiving and cursing pour out from the same mouth. My friends, this should not happen! No spring of water pours out sweet water and bitter water from the same opening. A fig tree, my friends, cannot bear olives; a grapevine cannot bear figs, nor can a salty spring produce sweet water.
*James 3.3-12 (GNT)
A writing attributed to Paul, an early Christian apostle, puts into graphic image the power of the loose tongue to hurt persons in the communion and the entire fellowship...
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; You shall love others as you love yourself. Yet, if you bite and eat on one another, be alert, so not to be eaten up by one another.
*Galatians 5.14-15 (Author's Translation)
His answer to this is to "walk in the Spirit." So, again, there are no rules to follow always, unless we say the rule of Love, yet to call this a "rule" is misleading. Love, as Paul stresses in the context, is one of freedom, not legislation or doctrine. Even to live in the Spirit, or by the Spirit, does not provide a certainty on how to always speak or act.
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