The Farmville herald. (Farmville, Va.) 1957-current, 1961-06-16
Burning Tongue
Lesson for June IS, 1861

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asked for a second. The next
time he went to her house. in
stead Of his talking most of the
time (as she tende d he
should, she carried the CONVEX
sational ball. so to speak. She
was a smooth and easy talker.
but when the young man got
home and had time to think it
over, one point struck him. That
girl did not actually have a good
word to say about anybody but
herself and her one close girl
friend. Everybody else she men,
toned and she seemed to know
everybody-she tore down; wit
tily. cleverly, in a very interest
ing fashion. The young man
could not help thinking: When
l am gone, what does she say
about me? He never went back
to find out.
THE Tongue Is An
Unrighteous World
The world of the tongue is a
wide one. It is as wide as hu-
man language. Even today, with
all our printing presses. micro
films. and recording machines,
the spoken word is much more
common than the written or re-
corded word. The world of the
tongue, however, is wider than
what reaches the ear. 1t is ad-
vertiSing, novels, books of
poetry and science, it is fact and
fiction, it is useful and useless,
it is ugly and beautiful, it is true
and it is false. The dictionary
can be used just as easily to tell
lies as to tell the truth. The
tongue can be used to build peo-
pie up or to tear them down.
Now the Bible warns over and
over against the sins of the
tongue. Some people think that
the only real sins are acts that
are done. not words that are
spoken. What is word but
sound, noise? Stabbing a man
with a ice-pick is murder, and
it's real and it's bad; but how
can talk hurt anybody? That is
bad logic. Most sins begin with
thought, then they break out into
words, words that bring forth
all the sins there are. In the
Bible story Of the first sin, why
did Eve disobey God? She was
talked into it. Why did Adam
sin? Eve talked him into it.
That's the way it goes. We
aren't usually pushed or prodded
into sin by a gun in our ribs:
somebody talks us into it.
The Tongue is a Fire
When J mes Jesus half
brother says. The tongue is a
fire." he did not mean any,
thing good. In the same passage
he calls the tongue a restless
evil. full of deadly poison. It is
like a diseased organ, staining
the whole body, like a diseased
liver causing jaundice. or like
certain fatal poisons which turn
the victims faces blue. In short,
he is reminding us of what
every sensible persons knows;
that the tongue can be destruc-
tive. like fire. like poison, like a
cancer. Fire, when it destroys,
does not rebuild.
Is Fire Bad?
So it is with the tongue. A little
lie told in secret is repeated and
repeated, and it loses no fat in
the telling. A careless mean re-
mark can spread till it ruins
some ones reputation. Would
you rather be stabbed in the
back with that ice-pick and
have it over quickly, or do you
want to be stabbed in the back
with SANDER, see your world
melt away from you. and suffer
a lingering living death from the
fire OF suspicion and hate which
that SANDER has kindled? The
fire of the tongue lasts longer
and goes farther and can do
more harm than any flames that
kill off the wild game or turn
great mansions to ashes. Never
theleSs. fire is not always bad.
Without fire man could never
have become civilized. But the
only way to make fire good is to
control it. Fire INTENDED, un-
watched, is almost always bad.
It is the guarded. controlled fire,
in the furnace or the stove or the
motor car or mine. or the lab
oratory, that is a friend to man.
So the tongue unguarded, clat-
tering wild, can do damage no
insurance can replace. Can you
control your tongue? Best way
to stop a fire is before it starts.
BASED on outlines copyright
ed by the Division of Christian
Education, National Council Of
the Churches Of Christ in the U.
S. A. Released by Community