intended

Talk To, Not About // Micah

We live in a day where communication norms have been flipped upside down. In this space, right has no doubt been confused with wrong, as much as in any other. One form of destructive communication that has been normalized is gossip. Our modern society feeds off of soiled morsels generated at tables of intrigue. Such an appetite has been formed that entire industries and associated economies are sustained through gossip.

Responsible patterns of first seeking to understand what someone actually said or did, what they intended, and why they went about it as such, have been lost. We are quick to by-pass an individual, arbitrarily assign our spin about them and drive our poorly derived perspective through talk channels. Before ever getting with someone, we have had their name on our lips in hallways, over coffee, on phone calls, in social posts and even in group “prayer forums.” To make it worse, as we malign their name we do so with all sorts of pious justifications for our behavior. This indeed has become a scourge in our land and a plague in the body of Christ.

We need to repent and turn to the communication patterns given to us by The Word Himself. We need to relearn the power bound up in the tongue to aide us in bringing in great good or causing great destruction. We need to understand the damage done to those on the other end of our deadly rants and remember how serious God takes it when we assasinate the character of people He formed in the womb and died for on the cross.

Said simply, we need to relearn to Talk To, Not About people.

James 3:6, 9-10 “And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell… With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.”

Titus 3:22 “To speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.”

- Micah McElveen