![]() ![]() And for most of us, being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry doesn’t come naturally. So, if our listeners are interested, they can go and just print this off and keep it posted so you can keep reviewing what the Bible has to say about this.īut the verse that I keep coming back to-that I have to remind myself of regularly-is from James, Chapter 1, which says, “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.” We really ought to make listening a higher priority than speaking. We’ve gotten the “okay” to list those on our website at. There are a lot of times that I might be temporarily upset at something one of my children did but I can say something that’s permanently damaging to them rather than just keeping it shut, talking about it a little bit after tempers have cooled and we’ve simmered down a little bit.īob: Well, the verse that keeps coming back to me-and I should just mention here that, on page 75 of your book, you’ve got ten verses that you’ve pulled out that are kind of your top ten on what the Bible has to say about our speech. I know for me, I have to tell myself, often, to make sure my heart is pure before I speak-to pause before I pounce rather than just letting it all fly-and not to say something permanently painful just because I’m temporarily ticked off. We dwell on them in our mind and then, once they’ve been ruminating in there a little bit, it comes out of our mouth-and now, it’s too late / we regret what we’ve said. Maybe we can trace some fractured friendships back to that or some heap of trouble we got ourselves into but it’s not just really that, “Oh, I opened my mouth and out came these words!” First, they start in our heart. Sometimes, we use our mouths in a wrong way / we use our words badly. You know, Luke 6:45 says that the mouth speaks what the heart already has stored. That’s really where the problem is right? When you looked at what the Bible has to say about this, one of the things you found is that the lips are connected to the heart. Those are still our words, whether we’re speaking them with our mouths or we’re typing them with our fingers, or we’re texting them to a family member.īob: When you went to look at what the Bible has to say-and, by the way, we’re talking to Karen Ehman, who has written a book called Keep It Shut. Some very introverted people use their words in a very bad way sometimes on the internet. No, especially with-like we were just mentioning-social media. I knew that the answers to all of life’s dilemmas are found within the Bible so I just started digging in to find out what the Bible said about what we are to say, how we are to say it, and when we are just to keep it shut.ĭennis: And is this disease that we suffer from here only for those of us who are extroverts? I could just see the ways that my mouth had gotten me into trouble. ![]() ![]() Sometimes, my words were angry-losing my patience with my kids when they were smaller. I would, you know, just give enough words for both of us because I would talk, talk, talk. I’m married to a very quiet man, who just sits there and takes it. When I was newly married, I had a lot of anger. In the early years, it was like in middle school-gossiping / repeating things I shouldn’t have. My words, over the years, have gotten me into a lot of trouble. I could trace every fractured friendship / every broken relationship back to something that I said. Karen: -one of my children will walk through the room with that book and just hold it up right in front of their face, like: “Mom, keep it shut! Keep it shut!” īut, you know, the reason I wrote the book is mainly because I looked back over my life-I’m in my middle-aged years now-and I looked back over my life. ![]() Karen: Oh, yes! And not only preaches to me as I re-read parts of it-but sometimes, when my husband and I are having a healthy, domestic discussion. I’ve got a feeling this book is preaching to you regularly. It’s like that book kind of cried out to us as we finished the process. Bob: You’ve got to be accountable for what you wrote in here, now, too!ĭennis: Barbara and I wrote a book about raising teenagers before we were done raising teenagers. ![]()
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