News for the week of May 2-8, 2024

It’s always good for pastors to practice what they preach. (I think I hear a couple people out there saying “amen!”)  So I’m going to follow one of the admonitions I mentioned in last Sunday’s message. I said that one of the disciplines that help us combat pride is the willingness to confess our faults. I’m going to confess one of mine.

I write long-winded emails, notes, and letters. Sometimes very loooong-winded.

You’ve probably noticed that already—especially if we’ve had email correspondence. It’s true. I confess it. I’m sorry.   I know it’s not the biggest fault in the world, but I’m sure it’s a nuisance sometimes for those of you who have to read what I type out. It’s probably a by-product of spending too much of my life teaching in 3-hour blocks and trying to be really precise. Occasionally it’s necessary. But it can also be a bad habit, and I’ll try to do better.

I’m especially sensitive to the issue this week because our topic for this coming Sunday’s sermon is speech—“the tongue.” One of the things Proverbs tells us about our speech is that the wise person lives by the “less is more” principle: he or she listens a lot and avoids talking too much. Hmmm. Whenever I revisit those verses, I feel a certain sting of conviction, and I resolve to talk less.

So at least for this week, I’ll try to keep the newsletter on the brief side. Fortunately, there’s not a ton of news to report. I’ve mentioned already that on Sunday we’re going to look at one of the largest and most important themes in Proverbs: the matter of our speech.

If you’re wanting to read ahead, it’s unusually difficult to tell you where to focus your attention this time around, since the subject runs through the whole book. A good place to start would be our Scripture reading for Sunday, which is Proverbs 12:13-25, but you could read almost anywhere in Proverbs and find insights on the tongue. Also, if you want to spend a little time in a New Testament passage on this theme, the longest (and most proverb-like) is James chapter 3.

By the way, here’s a fun fact for those who like biblical detail. The second major section of Proverbs runs from 10:1 through 22:16. The heading at the start of this section reads: “The Proverbs of Solomon,” and it contains 375 proverbs—which is also the numerical equivalent of the name “Solomon” when converted into numbers.  (Hebrew uses letters to stand for numbers so you can count up the number for any Hebrew word.)  Unlike the section before it, this part of the book consists almost entirely of independent 2- and 4-line proverbs, many taking the form “this … but that.” These proverbs are thrown together without a really precise arrangement, or at least not one I can find. But they tend to be grouped around common topics, so you get 5 or 6 proverbs on one subject, then 10 or 11 on another, and so forth.  I kept track of topics the last time I went through the section. Nearly every other grouping included “speech” and “the tongue” as one of its main themes.  So, it really is a common and important subject in the book.

Well, I seem to be going long again. So, I’ll stop. As James says so well, it’s really hard to tame the tongue! But I’ll keep trying. Thanks for your patience, and have a wonderful and blessed week.