Bridling the Tongue Podcast Episode

Those words, they can’t be taken back. They can be repented for. They can be asked for forgiveness. But they were heard. So many consequences that can’t be taken back in. Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. 

Excellent as always to have you along. I’m very glad to have in the studio Craig and Jackie Stickling. Thanks for coming in, Jackie. You’re welcome. Jackie is the wife of Craig, and we’re going to work as a team here today. Yes, I’m looking forward to that. I’d like to start our conversation today with a bit of Scripture that we all know, and the writer in James just does such a great job with imagery and really exposing a thing for what it is. 

And in this case, and in this setting, it’s the tongue. He says this, behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth, and the tongue is a fire. A world of iniquity so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell. For every kind of beast, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea is tamed and hath been tamed of mankind, but the tongue can no man tame. 

It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father. And therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. You know, we could provide a cautionary tale to the tongue, but James really waxed eloquently with it, didn’t he? And very powerful too. He didn’t mince anything, did he? 

No. Speaking of that potential that the tongue has, and this is an ancient text, there’s nothing new under the sun. The tongue is getting us into trouble as much these days it ever has, I suppose, right? Yeah. We’re going to talk about the tongue here today. And I know this is a topic Craig, you and Jackie both have prepared and had a couple of opportunities to share and to teach on. 

And that is this concept of gossip, which is perhaps one of the fires that we start with the tongue. Great place to start is just looking at what is gossip and you don’t find that in the Bible. At least in the King James you won’t find gossip anywhere. But the Bible says that. Other words to describe that are a liar, false witness, false accuser, talebearer, whisperer, naughty tongued, flatterer, backbiter, tattler, busybody, scorner, mocker, and then the slander. 

And in what you read, Matt, James was right. That sounds like cursing, doesn’t it? We just list those words out. And so, if we just look at gossip from a dictionary point of view, a rumor or a report of an intimate nature, a casual conversation or substantiated reports about other people, it can talk from personal and sensational to intimate in nature or statements that defame or injure a person’s wellbeing. 

Sharing anything about someone that has not been checked out to be true or would not be said if they were present or does not help or edify. Gossip is both a verb and a noun, isn’t it? Which is interesting. There are lots of words that are nouns and verbs. You can gossip as a verb but you kind of win yourself a name by doing it, which I think is a real cautionary tale in itself, isn’t it? Yeah. If you are known as that, people will hesitate to confide in you. I mean, your reputation is damaged. Craig, what is the price that we pay for gossip? Certainly, that would be a relational price we pay. Right. The Bible really speaks into this, almost like it’s holding up this flag that says hey, be aware of this. 

And if we will look at vertically, there’s a huge consequence of just the gospel being shared and the hindrance of the gospel to someone who is a slanderer or speaks one thing, but then does another and their words are not consistent. You can look at the impact that comes out just from hindering the gospel reputation, as we mentioned, reputations being smeared. 

Trust is broken. I told this person this and I did not think they were going to tell. And all of a sudden, so then it can break trust of leadership. It’s easy in a sense to bash or to smash leadership and even church leadership. And that erodes another level of connecting and caring. Then what happens with our children when we bring children into this picture and they’re victims of this or they hear things as well, then the children become hardened or separated and that can create another layer of damage to the family. 

Also, families have tensions and children are upset or there’s isolation and a moving away and we don’t want to be part of that. It can create strife within families, and it just can erode in so many ways of life that are around us and it’s interesting how powerful that tongue, the poison, can be incorporated into every part of our life. 

What motivated your decision? Yeah, I think that is the piece that motivated us in both of our families and extended families. We have situations, but what hurts so much is that when you see so much brokenness out there and sometimes, you wish you could take words back. But you can’t. 

Yeah. The consequences are there. So, Jackie, I would imagine that experience has pushed you even to think, why do we do this? Yeah. Why do we do this? You don’t take enjoyment in other people’s griefs, but sadly it does. Enjoying the misfortune of another, and I dare say, Jackie, that is really heart revealing. 

Yeah, it’s such a flip of the beauty of words, the beauty of communicating. God blessed us with relationship and the desire to know and the desire to connect and even within a church community, what a beauty it is to know and to be aware and to be able to know, hey, how’s this family doing? 

And we have a great desire, and there’s a beauty in that. There’s a beauty in knowing and being known and sharing and being able to bear one another’s burdens. That only happens if we share and trust and there’s so much beauty that comes out of God’s design for that. And then you just get so frustrated when Satan, just takes something that God made good and just finds a way to twist it to bring hurt and harm. 

Really? You’ve just put your finger on this idea of gossip being the shadow or the brokenness of a good thing. Yeah, and that is good fellowship. So, there is something about the audience, isn’t there? Certain things are appropriate and inappropriate. The same message is appropriate or inappropriate depending on the audience. 

Is that a true statement? You have your intimate circles; you have your next circle of influence and that probably depends on the situation you’re discussing. It probably depends on a lot of factors, but you really have to think about those things before you engage in the conversation. Pray about it, is this something I should discuss with my best friend? 

Or is this something that I should discuss with the women in my pilot group? Right. Think about it before you go there. Yeah, there’s a level of always checking our motivation in that sense, but that level of care. Are these people who I have a trust and a willingness to be vulnerable with, because I’m going to share personal things, or I’m going to share something that’s really important to me? Or in a setting or situation, are those people whom I trust and care for, or are they people who have maybe a spiritual role in helping me get to a solution? 

And to be able to have those contexts, like you said, those opportunities are those levels of audiences, right? And the Lord will have us around different audiences. And some people have a lot of people who they have really close circles that they can share a lot of those things and know that it is safe and to be cared for in the right way to be stewarded wisely. 

And then there might be some people who would ask, who would I go and speak to about this? Who would I share this with? And that helps us as observers to even be mindful of that. One area when it comes to gossip, Craig, that we as praying Christians think about is the license or liberty we give ourselves. 

Yeah. What are your thoughts on that? So true. It’s like that double edged sword, isn’t it? It’s certainly something that we’re called to do and a beautiful thing to be able to pray in with specificity. And who hasn’t asked for prayer or said, oh, hey, I heard about, could you pray for? What a beautiful gift and bearing that we have as a church body. 

I think one of the things as we talk about this topic is I really have to do my heart check. I really have to ask myself when I share this, or if I share this information about someone, and then at the end, it’s like, well, as long as I tag on the, well, let’s pray for them, or we need to pray for them, that then excuses everything that I told you and all the motives behind it. 

I think we really have to be careful with that, Matt. I think sometimes maybe we can overshare or be too detail focused. When we ask someone, just pray, is sometimes just enough. I think of something a sister shared with me. My mother-in-law was a very wise person. And this particular sister shared with me one time when my mother-in-law shared a prayer request with her. 

She pressed her for more details. And she responded, you have enough to pray on. And it was to that exact point that she wasn’t going to get caught in the weeds. And this particular sister really took that to heart and was like, boy, that was spot on. Yeah. And that’s good for the person who is sharing and also for the listener, right? 

The listener has an opportunity to be able to recognize, you know what, we have enough. I don’t need anything more. I know God already knows. And so, I’m thankful we can pray for this person. Yeah. All right. So, I’ll go ahead and indict myself. And then we can psychoanalyze me and see the darkness. 

And well, that’s why I brought Jackie, Matt. So, we’re in good hands today. There was the farmer who owned the ground around me. Okay. His name was Larry. And he’d come out to check the crops a couple of times in the summer. He lived a distance away and he would come and check on the renters and I own the old farmhouse, you know. 

And whenever he’d come out, I would go out because I wanted to have good relationships with the neighbors and the landowners. And we’d shoot the breeze, you know, through the window of his car. And I don’t think we were gossiping, but I will say I noticed that our conversations were negative. And that is either commiserating about something political or commiserating about something communal tends to be negative. And there was a strange kinship that I had with Larry that we could make on these non-edifying topics. You know what I’m saying? And I share that to say that gossip is appealing and tempting because we get a sense of connection with a person, you know what I mean? 

Yeah. And so that’s where it’s like I can really believe that this conversation will help my relationship with this person. I mean, we’re going to really be able to talk. Isn’t there something really twisted about this? And this is because you know that that person will feel the same way about it as you do. 

Or it’s just juicy enough to keep building it. If you were in that conversation with somebody from the opposite view on things, it wouldn’t be as enjoyable. Yeah, maybe not. Perhaps. And you look at the struggle that creates, right? Because then the next time you meet with him, what have you established as what you connect on? 

Yes. And then you have to dig for more stuff to pull out of the garbage to even equal what you shared last time. And the model of blessing has now been turned upside down, hasn’t it? Oh yeah, so Craig, now I’ll finish the story. Okay. So, I was convicted of that exact thing. God was like, you know what, your conversations with Larry are just the opposite of the gospel. Gospel is good news, and you just spend time talking about the bad news. And so, the next time he came out, I made a point to try to, you know, and the pattern of our conversation was so bent the wrong way, it was difficult to have a positive conversation with him. 

He wanted to go negative. I was trying to go positive and the whole thing just kind of fell flat. You know what I mean? Yeah, that’s how broken relationships and conversations get with people. Anyway, yeah, and he probably drove away going. What was that man? I was really hoping to hash things out. We were going to really get into it. 

You know, you flawed your flawed reputation, didn’t you, Matt? He was expecting you to act a certain way and you didn’t. But the point is, he and I didn’t have a good script. Yeah, our relationship was built on the wrong script. How many of our relationships are built on bad conversational patterns? 

That’s my point. Yeah. That reminds me a little bit of some of the things that we looked at in answering that question of why people gossip. And there’s a lot of reasons. And I think we probably look spiritually first at our heart and that need for either the prideful being important or the itching ear piece, but some things that they talk about just in a general sense. 

Okay, so why is gossiping, why does that seem to become so easy? And a couple of thoughts that people have had is to fill in voids in conversations. I just don’t know enough about other things, but I can talk about what I heard about people. Lack of general knowledge, not knowing enough about other interesting things, to belong to a group, right? 

If everyone is gossiping, you know, you’re with Farmer Larry and someone else, if everyone is gossiping and I’m not, I’m left out. So how do I fit in? Being inferior. People don’t have healthy self-worth or self-esteem. Do I get to look a little better if I’m able to pull someone else down? Taking revenge. 

Oh, that person, they constantly are getting at me or frustrating me or doing things better than me. And I just need to get back at them somehow. That’s my hurt and immaturity, but I’m going to go after them. And sometimes just unmasking or showing the real side of people. Like, this person really isn’t as good as you think they are. 

And so, I need to reveal to you the truth that, well, they’re not really that good. And so, you look at all of those things that come out of the same pool that falls under this gossip word. So, Craig, you just like piled on the indictments. Because a couple of those hit with me and Larry, let me go in one filler, right? 

I mean, he was much older than I am, you know what I mean? And so, you want to say something. What are you going to say? What’s there to talk about? Right? You hate silence, especially if it’s a person who you’re not familiar with. You hate silence. And you can really get pressured in moments like that. 

And I think we’ve all had moments where, I don’t think I should be saying this right now, but it sure fits the conversation right now. Like this is a point on the conversation. So here we go. You know what I mean? I’ve got the floor, and we get ahead of ourselves. Not even out of malcontent, but just like my tongue got ahead of me. 

Yeah. And if I know that person doesn’t like the person that I’m going to share some information on we have a beautiful kinship all of a sudden, don’t we? It’s an upside-down model, but it connects us, doesn’t it? Yeah. And here is a conviction that God laid on my heart. 

He said, and what I felt is, man, when Larry needs hope, he’s not going to be looking for you. That was the wake-up call. If my conversation with Larry is doom and gloom and negative, and he needs hope, he’s going to go somewhere else. Yeah. And that’s some of the price we pay.  

And you think of how powerful that is when Jesus was talking about that, when you bear one another’s burdens, you fulfill my law. The law of Christ and what happens in that burden sharing if that person says, well, I can’t come to you or I’m not going to come to you or, you know, this is a nice person, but she really isn’t trustworthy because I know if you tell her something the next weekend everyone knows. 

And so that then inhibits my need to be willing to be vulnerable and to share my burdens. That gossip connection that we have with those we gossip with backfires, doesn’t it? Yeah. And Jackie, that was really the point you made early on about eroding trust. Yeah, it definitely erodes that trust. 

When you share something about somebody else, you’re handing that person a burden that maybe they didn’t want to have that they now carry. I’ve heard it said that knowledge is power when we know something that’s powerful and we can have an appetite for that power and there is a kind of a power exchange, isn’t there? 

Yeah. In a gossipy moment we might be wanting power. So, hey, tell me. Yeah. Or we might want to flaunt our power and say I know something. Exactly. When I realized that in myself, it’s super humbling to go, why does that make me feel good to know that I know something? It’s part of our human nature, I guess. 

Paul spoke to Titus and was talking to him about, oh, this church and creed is wanting, and there’s some things just please go speak into them. And one of the things that he spoke about was that beautiful Titus 2 ministry, right? Of teaching into the older to then meet to the younger. And he shared it to men. 

So, men weren’t exempt from this, but he spoke especially to the women to not be slanderers. And he then pulls in this really dark side of gossip. And he mentions this word slander. Gossip is a nice entry point into slander. When you go into slander, that’s where it’s really hurtful. Gossip might just be shared news type of thing. 

I’m not intending to harm anybody here but I’m just passing the news along. And sometimes when you slide into slander and you don’t even realize it, you slide. All of a sudden, when you’re looking back, you’re going, oh, I think that was hurtful. When you said it, you may or may not have known it was going to be hurtful. 

But again, it’s those words that can’t be taken back. They can be repented for, they can be asked for forgiveness, but they were heard. So many consequences that can’t be taken back in. Such a convicting piece of that study was that word slander that Paul used. When you look at that origin of it is about diablos, which is really referencing the devil or that evil piece of the devil’s work. 

And when you draw that parallel that Paul was saying to Titus to teach into this, that slandering is the equivalent of doing Satan’s bidding. Satan is an accuser and he’s a liar and he’s continuously putting that message out and he’s speaking into the Titus 2 ministry there of saying that will corrupt your ministry. 

But he knew that slander and gossip would be a great hindrance to that work. When you think of a godly older woman in your church who speaks grace and encouragement, she did not become that woman when she retired. She grew into that woman. And so, all of those skills that it talks about in Titus 2, and gossip being one of the biggest ones, is you got to start young. 

It talks to the young women; it talks to the older women. We’re all young compared to someone else. We’re all older compared to someone else. But these are the skills that as a young woman, you need to grow into and not just start. Yeah, it definitely highlights, Jackie, that this will be one of the markings of maturity. 

As we mature as a believer, gossip will have less and then no part at all in our life. Yeah. And I can imagine as you picture that older sister, she’s at a place of security in who she is and doesn’t need to puff herself up by putting somebody else down, right? Those things we learn in kindergarten, right? 

Which very much plays on these matters. And in a sense, this topic just has a great significance because it is so countercultural. We live in a society that is all about the dirt or the scoop or the gossip. And you know, there’s all sorts of news magazines, fake news, whatever news. It’s all about trying to capture people’s attention with what’s going on with someone. 

And it’s in a negative way. And we’re saturated with that. You’ve no doubt had to think about what would it look like to do this well? What is God calling us to? Craig, you’ve tipped your hat to the beauty of fellowship and what God’s ideals are. Let’s go there and envision that a bit more. I think it’s probably in about every classroom, or at least in every school, it’s just an acronym to remind myself before I speak, the T H I N K. 

Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it inspiring? Or is it going to help improve this? Is it necessary? Is it kind? As we move forward, how do we stop and catch my tongue, take my thought captive, run it through a filter before I let it come out? And that kind of comes back on my heart and my responsibility. And am I willing to do that? 

Am I willing to seek that? Man, I think even beneath the hood of that, Craig. a prerequisite for us to respect the THINK acronym, we have to love righteousness. Yeah. More than wickedness. As long as we kind of prefer wickedness over righteousness or find wickedness a more interesting subject matter than righteousness, we’re just got an uphill battle. 

God is calling us to something very deep and transformative. To have that righteousness and that desire to do good. To speak good, we can do wonderful things if we can speak well of our friends and family and kids and be truthful, but to speak well and to speak into some encouragement. 

Would we have a friend or someone that we could trust? Maybe there’s that older woman, sister of great esteem or that you have esteem for and that you would just ask them? Do I have a problem with this topic? Do I have a problem with gossiping? And if we really ask someone that, oh, that would take a lot of grace, that would take a lot of humility to be able to ask, but I wonder what we would hear. 

And would that then help me to stop for a moment and say, Lord, I don’t want to be really good at something you don’t want me to do. And so, can I learn from that? Am I willing to ask for that? Whether it be gossip or just being critical, will you come alongside me and help me? It can become easy to become blind to yourself and those people that we engage with probably do know if we’re critical, negative or gossipy or slanderous, right? 

Those things are known to them and to open ourselves up. Yeah, we do. We really have to humble ourselves and take an honest look at ourselves and have some repentance. And as I reflect, I just love that the Bible isn’t just a big list of nots, but it’s also about how to do and how to be and how to live and how to be more like Christ. 

And we look at this topic as an opportunity, right? We’ll go back to James 3, a bridled ambassador for our Savior. And just the verse here in Psalm 19:14, Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Thanks both of you, Jackie and Craig. 

Be a person who speaks well, and that’s what God calls us to. He calls us to be a voice of blessing in much the same way he is to people. And we live in a world of cursing, so we don’t need to pile on that. Yes. Right. Thanks both of you for being on. And thanks, each one, for listening in. No doubt this topic is relevant. 

We understand it. We taste it. We feel it. We feel the conviction of it. We also see the beauty in living as God has asked us to live for his glory and for the blessing of others. The Lord is with us.