curses and blessings out of the same mouth
It has been said that the “tongue” is one of the most exercised muscles of our body. It has been estimated that in a typical week, the average person will speak enough words to fill a 500 page book! However, for the Christian, the use of the tongue must be a matter of careful forethought and discipline. The Bible warns that believers who do not bring restraint to their tongue and speech have been deceived — and without such control over their words, their religious acts are worthless and hypocritical. “If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless” (James 1:26). It is a deception for any of us to think that Jesus can be Lord over our life, without also becoming Lord over our tongue.----Dr. Dale A. Robbins, found at www.victorious.org/tongue.htm
Don't be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you'd have a perfect person, in perfect control of life.
A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it!
It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.
This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can't tame a tongue—it's never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!
My friends, this can't go on. A spring doesn't gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don't bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don't bear apples, do they? You're not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?---James 3:1-12
The words of wisdom I have printed above are very appropriate, I think, as I read an article from NewsMax.com concerning Dr. James Dobson and Fred Thompson. The whole article can be summed up in the first 3 sentences:
Focus on the Family founder James Dobson has dealt a potentially devastating blow to Fred Thompson’s presidential aspirations, saying the former senator is not a Christian.
"Everyone knows he’s conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for,” Dobson – considered the most politically powerful evangelical figure in the U.S. – said in a phone call to Dan Gilgoff, senior editor at U.S. News & World Report.
"[But] I don’t think he’s a Christian. At least that’s my impression.”
That is an amazingly hateful, reckless, stupid remark from a man who should know better. How dare Dobson presume to know what is in Thompson's heart? Just because Thompson doesn't publically mouth pretty prayers and make a big show of his faith? Get a load of what Dobson's mouthpiece had to say as he sought to "clarify" Dobson's remarks:
Focus on Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger sought to clarify Dobson’s statement, telling Gilgoff that while Dobson didn’t believe Thompson belonged to a non-Christian faith, he "has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian – someone who openly talks about his faith.
"We use that word – Christian – to refer to people who are evangelical Christians. Dobson wasn’t expressing a personal opinion about his reaction to a Thompson candidacy.”
You have got to be kidding me! Folks, it is precisely this kind of attitude that makes people hate Christians! Why do you think so many people look at Christians and don't like what they see? It is because we have too many so-called Christians who can't control their mouths, and who are so amazingly arrogant and puffed up with false visions of their own importance that they would presume to act like God by judging others. When Jesus called the religious leaders of His day a "brood of vipers," he was speaking of people like Dobson!
And by the way, how arrogant is it for Dobson to publically proclaim that serial-adulterer Newt Gingrich is "forgiven" and "the right kind of Christian" and then proclaim that Fred Thompson is not any kind of Christian? Just who does Dobson think he is? And don't misinterpret what I'm saying about Gingrich---I'm not questioning his faith or heart or motives because I don't have the ability to look inside him. That's just the point. If Dobson can point to something that Thompson said which contradicts the Gospel, or he can point to something that Thompson did which would call into question his Christian faith, then I'm all for hearing about it. If Dobson can't do any of those things, then he needs to shut up, drop to his knees, and beg for God's forgiveness for the arrogant hatred that spewed out of his mouth! What a snake!
Don't be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you'd have a perfect person, in perfect control of life.
A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it!
It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.
This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can't tame a tongue—it's never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!
My friends, this can't go on. A spring doesn't gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don't bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don't bear apples, do they? You're not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?---James 3:1-12
The words of wisdom I have printed above are very appropriate, I think, as I read an article from NewsMax.com concerning Dr. James Dobson and Fred Thompson. The whole article can be summed up in the first 3 sentences:
Focus on the Family founder James Dobson has dealt a potentially devastating blow to Fred Thompson’s presidential aspirations, saying the former senator is not a Christian.
"Everyone knows he’s conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for,” Dobson – considered the most politically powerful evangelical figure in the U.S. – said in a phone call to Dan Gilgoff, senior editor at U.S. News & World Report.
"[But] I don’t think he’s a Christian. At least that’s my impression.”
That is an amazingly hateful, reckless, stupid remark from a man who should know better. How dare Dobson presume to know what is in Thompson's heart? Just because Thompson doesn't publically mouth pretty prayers and make a big show of his faith? Get a load of what Dobson's mouthpiece had to say as he sought to "clarify" Dobson's remarks:
Focus on Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger sought to clarify Dobson’s statement, telling Gilgoff that while Dobson didn’t believe Thompson belonged to a non-Christian faith, he "has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian – someone who openly talks about his faith.
"We use that word – Christian – to refer to people who are evangelical Christians. Dobson wasn’t expressing a personal opinion about his reaction to a Thompson candidacy.”
You have got to be kidding me! Folks, it is precisely this kind of attitude that makes people hate Christians! Why do you think so many people look at Christians and don't like what they see? It is because we have too many so-called Christians who can't control their mouths, and who are so amazingly arrogant and puffed up with false visions of their own importance that they would presume to act like God by judging others. When Jesus called the religious leaders of His day a "brood of vipers," he was speaking of people like Dobson!
And by the way, how arrogant is it for Dobson to publically proclaim that serial-adulterer Newt Gingrich is "forgiven" and "the right kind of Christian" and then proclaim that Fred Thompson is not any kind of Christian? Just who does Dobson think he is? And don't misinterpret what I'm saying about Gingrich---I'm not questioning his faith or heart or motives because I don't have the ability to look inside him. That's just the point. If Dobson can point to something that Thompson said which contradicts the Gospel, or he can point to something that Thompson did which would call into question his Christian faith, then I'm all for hearing about it. If Dobson can't do any of those things, then he needs to shut up, drop to his knees, and beg for God's forgiveness for the arrogant hatred that spewed out of his mouth! What a snake!
posted by hondo at 8:58 PM
3 Comments:
Hondo, it seems to me that you need to back up a bit. It is a good thing that you do not have the readership of NewsMax, much less the audience of Focus on the Family.
Your attitude toward Dr. Dobson is far more hateful than any percieved "arrogant hatred" in his published statement. You have vilified a good man for speaking his honest doubts. To call Dr. Dobson a "snake" and a "so-called Christian" is irresponsible. Dr. Dobson qualified his opinion as just that, using the words "think" and "impression." He did not "proclaim" anything to be a fact.
If you are going to proclaim yourself the voice of "Christian Conservatives" at Blogger.com, then you need to heed the same scriptures you quoted against James Dobson. Your keyboard is your "tongue" in the blogosphere!
Henry, you are making the same mistake that far too many Christians make when it comes to the subject of rightous anger. Let's compare what I said, and what James Dobson said.
Dobson said that Fred Thompson isn't a Christian. He also confessed that he didn't know Thompson. When you say that another person is not a Christian, you are making a judgement about their eternal salvation. Dobson was essentially saying that Thompson isn't getting into heaven because Thompson isn't his "kind of Christian." That is an arrogant and hateful thing to say. He deserves the righteous anger of all Christians.
I said, "That is an amazingly hateful, reckless, stupid remark from a man who should know better. How dare Dobson presume to know what is in Thompson's heart? Just because Thompson doesn't publically mouth pretty prayers and make a big show of his faith?" You, Henry, say that what I said was more hateful than what Dobson said. With all due respect sir, you are flat out wrong. Dobson questioned the fate of Thompson's soul. I expressed anger over Dobson doing that. If you don't see the difference, then I can't help you.
I went on to say that, if Dobson has any examples of Thompson saying anything that contradicts the Gospel, or of acting in any way that contradicts the Gospel, then he should publically state those. Since Dobson doesn't know anything about Thompson, he can't do that. This makes Dobson's comments worse.
There's something else that makes Dobson's comments even worse than that. His comments came just days after he all but publically endorsed Newt Gingrich for President. The Dobson declaration came after Gingrich met with Dobson to publically confess his sins. If I was a real cynical chap, I would think that Dr. Jsmes Dobson is trying to blow a possible Thompson presidential bid out of the water before it starts, and that he is doing it under the guise of proclaiming Christian faith. If that is indeed correct, you can add "hypocrite" to the names that I called Dobson.
That, sir, is righteous anger, and the Bible says that Jesus reacted in the same way when faced with the same type of behavior from the so-called religious leaders of His day.
And by the way, Henry, Dobson did "proclaim." He said, "I don't think he's a Christian." Dobson's spokesperson later clarified the remarks by saying that Dobson meant that Thompson wasn't an evangelical Christian because he had never made public utterances about his faith. Dobson said that it would be hard for evangelicals to vote for Thompson because he wasn't evangelical enough. Henry, that is just as clear as a sunny day. Dobson is saying that, because Thompson isn't "his kind of Christian," then Thompson isn't a Christian.
If Dobson said those things with no political motive (sabatoging a Thompson bid) then he is just guilty of being hateful and arrogant. If Dobson did have a political motive, then he is guilty of much worse. I stand by everything I said.
Hondo,Henry,
Just checked in having been a way for a while and find myself in a very surreal position of agreeing with you both,kind of...
You Hondo for your spot-on judgement of gays-are-just-mama’s-boys-nutcase-Dobson.
And with you Henry for your ever very Christianized plea for understanding, and resisting the temptation to cast stones.
It's a bit odd to see you two disagree this strongly, but I would have to remind Hondo of the many times that he himself has cast judgement of others Christian status and their associated eternal salvation; a very arrogant and God-role act. And the very thing that he is hypocritically, but rightly accussing Dobson of.
ANyways, God-bless to both of you and your continung development of spirituality and the guts to expose yourselves by blogging to the rest of us.
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