Proverbs 29:11 ¶ 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 encourages 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 phone or computer 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.
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