Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
-Acts 17:11

Don’t just listen to someone else, read the Bible for yourself… every day!

So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
-James 3:5-8

Wow, for such a “small member,” the tongue is capable of a lot. It almost seems like we’re hopeless, doomed to be controlled by this “small member” we call the tongue. What we learn in v.9 is that it is not only a problem for us, but for the world when “With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” … “these things ought not to be so.” James says in v.10.

Indeed, the tongue is a destroyer. How do we tame this defiled beast that erodes away our life?

And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
-Acts 2:3-4

It’s interesting that the first thing that happens when the Holy Spirit comes on the Day of Pentecost is He purifies the tongue. The contrast here is that James speaks of all of the evil things the tongue is capable of, the fire that destroys; while Luke records in the book of Acts that immediately following these “divided tongues as of fire” appearing was power and purity of their speech, leading 3,000 to believe in Jesus Christ! (v.41) Fire spreads!

The tongue holds such an importance, as does the work of the Spirit in our lives to bring it under control. We can follow sinful nature into destruction with our tongue, or we can follow the Spirit into eternal life with our tongue not just for ourselves, but for others.

“A guy is riding in the first-class cabin of a train in Spain and to his delight, he notices that he’s sitting net to Pablo Picasso. Gathering up his courage, he turns to the master and says, “Señor Picasso, you are a great artist, but why is all your art, all modern art, so screwed up? Why don’t you paint reality instead of these distortions?”
Picasso hesitates for a moment and asks, “So what do you think reality looks like?”
The man grabs his wallet and pulls out a picture of his wife. “Here, like this. It’s my wife.”
Picasso take the photograph, looks at it, and grins. “Really? She’s very small. And flat,too.”

From the introduction Seth Godin’s book “Linchpin”

Really looking forward to reading this one!

David Nickless and I put this together for REAL Church‘s YouCharist Good Friday service.

He goes through the process of making a cross out of junk. Filming of junk collecting in alleys of Detroit and at the wood workshop in CCS(College for Creative Studies) was done using Photo Booth on a MacBook Pro. Music is He Never Said a Mumblin’ Word by The Welcome Wagon.