Sticks And Stones

We have have all heard the phrase, ” Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” If you have lived long enough on this earth to have had contact with other humans, you realize that of course this is not true. No matter what we think, there is power in our words, whether it be good or bad.

When King Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs, he was very straightforward and to the point when it came to how words can affect the people around us. Proverbs 18:21 tells us, “The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.”Think about the power in the words of someone like a judge in a courtroom, his words literally have the power to save someone’s life or end it. While most of the time our words do not carry quite that much weight, what Solomon is saying here is that we can either use our words to destroy someone, or to encourage and inspire them. The second part of the verse is the part that should really make us think about how we speak to others though. How ever we use our words, wether it be to encourage someone, or tear them down, WE will reap the benefits or consequences.

While reading an incredible book on the power of words called “Aspire” by Kevin Hall, I discovered that the word inspire comes from the Latin word “inspirare.” “Spirare” means to breath while in implies into. So when we seek to inspire others with our words, we are actually breathing life into them. He also looked at the words encourage and discourage. In the romance languages the word “coeur” means heart. So to encourage means to “add to someone’s heart” while discourage means to “to take away from someone’s heart.”

There are so many scriptures in the Bible dealing with words and their power that it would take an entire book to deal with them all; So I will leave you with two verses to think about. Matthew 15:18 “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person and Luke 6:45 “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”