A man who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a war club, or a sword, or a sharp arrow. — Proverbs 25:18 ESV
In last week’s post, we began to expose the untamed tongue with an intent to bring it to heel. For we have all brandished piercing words as slashing swords, even against those we would sacrificially protect. There are, as well, the sharp utterances of others, arrows piercing our own hearts despite the sentries we stationed around them. Some words target deception, and some corruption; there are others. But today let’s look at the deadliest arrow in the quiver, the one aimed at reputation.
The reformer Martin Luther observed the logic in which God’s commandment not to steal naturally flows into His next commandment —not to “bear false witness against your neighbor.”1 Wrote the reformer, “God wishes the reputation, good name, and upright character of our neighbor to be taken away or diminished as little as his money and possessions, that every one may stand in his integrity. . .”2 In “Othello,” William Shakespeare parallels Luther’s conviction:
“He that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.”3
We are our brother’s keeper, so how do we refrain from bending the bow toward his reputation? I offer no formula, just thoughts for consideration.
Pause first. “Be . . . slow to speak and slow to become angry.”4
Consider the damage. “The tongue has the power of life and death.”5 How will you use yours?
Empathize. Remember when someone harmed your reputation. What was the fallout? How did you feel?
Examine the heart. Do you really want to deprive for a lifetime the dignity and reputation of another?
Remember. “A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will perish.”6
Then from where comes the power to control the tongue? It comes from within — the discarding of the old self and the donning of the new. “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”7 We live in Christ, and His Spirit lives in us. We need not be controlled by our flesh anymore. We have choices. Speak truth in love.
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.” — James 3:9-10 NIV
Father, “Hide me from [those who] sharpen their tongues like swords and aim cruel words like deadly arrows,”8 and disincline my own heart from doing the same. In Christ I pray. Amen.
1 Exodus 20:16 ESV
2 Luther, Martin. “The Large Catechism.”
3 Shakespeare, William. “Othello,” in The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works, edited by Stanly Wells and Gary Taylor, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), Act 3, Scene 3, lines 164-166.
4 James 1:19 NIV
5 Proverbs 18:21 NIV
6 Proverbs 19:9 ESV
7 Colossians 3:9-10 ESV
8 Psalm 64:2-3 ESV
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