Believer, if you truly relish a life of turmoil, public anger, boiling arguments, caustic debates and throwing out verbal darts like porcupine quills, you will genuinely help the cause of Christ by not identifying publicly as a Christian. I’m serious. We are in desperate need of Christian wisdom, but not barbaric untamed and undignified rhetoric. It’s doing us no good.
Try this test of your speech first:
“The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:17-18).
There is so much that people find offensive in our message alone that we should severely minimize sharp undignified words on so many fronts. There may be a time when we prayerfully must speak to this issue or that. However, “the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). Those among us who have leaked too much toxin into the air already likely won’t be taken with much seriousness anyway.
Seek to be more like Jesus. Sure, he sometimes used strong language. But he was the Son of God. Yet he was also an example of careful, reasonable well-placed speech. He wasn’t a reactor. He “committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth; and while being reviled he did not revile in return; while suffering, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously” (1 Peter 22-22).
Our words are so important. Reevaluate. Are you doing good for the Kingdom of God by inconsiderate and unreasonable speech? Please think about it. Something must change if we are to be heard.