Proverbs 29:11; running off at the mouth

11 ¶ A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards.

We all have this evidence in our memory. You said too much in a job interview. You said the wrong thing to your spouse or friend. You said too much to your boss at work. You said too much to a potential customer. A wise person doesn’t say everything he could say but everything he should say. The interviewer doesn’t need to hear your negative opinions of your last employer. Your spouse doesn’t need to hear all that you think needs to be said about how she doesn’t cook this or that like your mother. Your friend doesn’t need to hear from you what a failure he is. You don’t want to talk yourself out of a sale.

We all remember some of our TMI moments, as in ‘too much information.’ There is a time for silence. When a Bible believer witnesses to a stranger or a family member there are a lot of things he or she could say, but shouldn’t. Saying everything that’s on your mind is not an effective presentation of the gospel. Some of the things you might FEEL like saying are from your flesh and are not glorifying to Christ.

The news is full these days of petty politicians bringing their ‘running off at the mouth’ disease into the political debate with such things as, “women have handicapped children because they had abortions in the past,” or “don’t feed the poor, it enourages them to breed,” and the like. Just because something is in your head doesn’t mean it should come out of your mouth.

With regard to our own religious beliefs, we should have the discernment to follow Paul’s admonition;

Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

People need to know that Christ is the only answer for a dying world and they need to know that we are all sinners bound for Hell without Christ in rebellion against a Holy God who offered us a way to get beyond that veil between us and Him by His own death on the cross, a ransom for sin, and by our acceptance of it as payment for our sin; by our trusting in Christ, God in the flesh, to have eternal life and to get to heaven, and getting there in Him alone. They’ll realize, if they honestly consider and the Holy Spirit has been working on them, how wicked their hearts really are. Harping on how they’re dressed, their tatooes and piercings, hair style or color, or what’s playing on their television completely misses the point in a way that some moron screaming unintelligible Bible verses through a megaphone at a gay pride rally misses the point.

Pick your words and don’t say whatever’s on your mind in some self righteous display of being what Paul, in the wisdom given to him by God, calls “wise in your own conceits.” (Romans 12:16) . You are an ambassador for Christ, His spokesman on earth. Are you witnessing for your own glory or for His? Trying to score points? Do you walk away smugly self satisfied that you’ve done your job, they’ve heard the gospel, no matter how mean spirited and hateful you put it? Just because it comes into your head doesn’t mean you have to be a fool and let it come out of your mouth. Remember, in the Bible God’s hardest speeches, His most angry comments, are reserved for the self righteous among the so called believers, Jew or Gentile, for those who honor Him with their mouths but whose hearts are far from Him.

Colossians 4:6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.