With a few careless words conflict so quickly rages out of control. Thus, Proverbs urges, in conflict, to speak gentle and wise words that please the Lord and bring healing, rather than gushing harsh and foolish words that anger the Lord and crush those around us.

In the 1970s a professor by the name of Albert Mehrabian proposed his famous 7-38-55 rule of communication. When we communicate our likes and dislikes, the listener’s acceptance of our communication will depend 7 percent on our words, 38 percent on our tone of voice, and 55 percent on our facial expressions and body language.
If I say, “I love pickled herring,” and my voice is slow and monotone and my face looks like a pickled herring, then, despite my words, you won’t put pickled herring out on the table next time we have breakfast together—unless you have a mischievous streak. And if I hear you tell me that you “have no problem with me” with an upbeat voice, but your arms are crossed and you are making overly intense eye contact, then I won’t be convinced.
Texting is less demanding than face-to-face communication.
This means that face-to-face communication is costly, because I know that you are weighing not just my words but also the tone of my voice and my body language. I am going to get an immediate—possibly uncomfortable—response from you. Is this why we prefer less demanding forms of communication? Like a phone call—or even a text?
On the flip side, with face-to-face communication there is far less room for misunderstanding. Even if I don’t get my words exactly right, my tone of voice and expressions will fill in the gap, clarify, or even correct my inadequate or poorly chosen words. Then again, maybe I don’t want you to hear my tone of voice or to see my body language. Perhaps it would say too much…
Texting is especially open to causing misunderstanding.
So although communicating by telephone may be less costly—because you are not seeing and weighing my expressions—it is also more open to misunderstanding. And communicating by email or text is the least costly form of communication: I don’t have to open up my expressions or even my tone of voice to your scrutiny. But I am now 93 percent open to being misunderstood. You have only my bare words, unqualified, unenhanced, and uncorrected by my non-verbal communication.
Now how is this going to work out in a society that is increasingly isolationist and wary of face-to-face contact and where even phoning someone is becoming rare? Research shows that phone apps are only the fifth most used app on smartphones, and I am told that Millennials dislike being called and prefer only text. In fact, they consider it a little rude to be called without prior warning via text!
The LORD has something to say about speaking in the book of Proverbs. His words, written some three thousand years ago, still apply whether we are speaking, writing letters, writing emails or texts, or posting on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
The Bible has a lot to say about the power of speech.
First, consider the Bible’s teaching on the power of speech.

And God said, “Light be.”And light was (Gen 1:3).

When God speaks, light and galaxies and teaming life burst into existence. His words are that powerful. And a word from Jesus could kill a fig tree, calm a storm, and raise a rotting corpse to life.
And our words, like those of our heavenly Father whose image we bear, have power to them. They can’t create ex nihilo, but they can build up and tear down. They can create and destroy. They can bring a torrent of good or evil. James tells us that just as a tiny spark can set ablaze a great forest, so too can the tongue set the whole course of a person’s life on fire.
Our words can do tremendous good or harm.
Very powerful things can do tremendous good or tremendous harm, and so they need to be tamed and controlled and directed in the right way. Proverbs addresses the tongue in the same way it addresses everything, by looking first at the heart.

The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked. (Prov. 10:11)

When a person has a righteous heart, then their mouth is a “fountain of life.” Their words transform what is saline and dead into something fresh and teaming with life. This makes me think of Ezekiel’s river, flowing east out of God’s Temple, and raising abundant life wherever it goes.
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The church is being built at exactly the rate that Jesus wants it to be built. Not one person faster or slower. Hell has not slowed the construction by even a second. Not one person whom Jesus wants included will be excluded.

“I’m frightened.” These were my Pop’s last words. I saw him just after death, and his face and body evinced struggle. He did not profess to be a Christian, and I asked my pastor whether this struggle was perhaps a sign that God was working on his spirit, and that perhaps he could have come to salvation in his last hour?
My pastor, knowing that Pop had not professed faith, answered with a straightforward “No.”
I was a little shocked. How could he speak with such certainty?
Matthew 16:13-19 explains how, a passage that Michael Green rightly calls “the hinge on which the whole Gospel turns.”

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” (Matt. 16:13-14; all Scripture passages from NIV version)

Caesarea Philippi, at the foot of snow-veiled Mount Hermon (the source of the Jordan river) is in the picturesque northern extremity of Palestine. In Matthew’s day it was the famously pagan center of pan-worship. Jesus probably retreated there with his disciples for a time of rest and instruction.
The lessons begin with this vital question: “Who do the people say the Son of Man is?”
“Son of Man” is Jesus’ favorite designation for himself. It captures both his humanity and, from Daniel 7:13-14, both his divine nature and divine destiny of universal and eternal rule (see Matt. 26:64).
Jesus knows exactly who he is. And by his authoritative teaching, healings, domination over the demonic realm, and supernatural command and control over nature, he has categorically revealed his identity and mission.
Having seen and heard this, what conclusions have the people drawn? “John the Baptist, Elijah, or Jeremiah …” Perhaps these great prophets had been resurrected in the person of Jesus. Without doubt he reprised the spirit of their ministry.
Is there a common thread? Were these three not the more poignant and pessimistic of the prophets? Certainly they were very exalted Jewish figures. Should not Jesus be flattered by the comparison? Not at all. None of them, like Jesus, claimed a divine identity and mission—nor proved it with supernatural acts of power. They were as inferior to Jesus as the ambassador is to the King, as the creature is to the Creator (Matt. 23:37).
What may have been meant as a compliment was in truth a profound denigration, a patronizing and willful denial of Jesus’ manifest identity.
The patronizing has never paused. A person with a passing knowledge of Jesus may perhaps deign to grant his existence, or even his importance as “a great moral teacher.”
Beyond excuse, however, are those New Testament scholars who shut their eyes to the arc-lamp of his glory that blazes from every paragraph of the Gospels, and who demote and disqualify and denigrate Jesus as “a very fine example.” J. Gresham Machen described this:

The modern liberal preacher reverences Jesus; he has the name of Jesus forever on his lips; he speaks of Jesus as the supreme revelation of God; he enters, or tries to enter, into the religious life of Jesus. But Jesus for him is an example of faith, not the object of faith. (Christianity and Liberalism, p. 85)

Any conception of Jesus that falls short of what Jesus revealed himself to be is not only an error or lie—it is perverse idolatry. It is to concoct a false image and to call it “Jesus.”
“But what about you?” Jesus asked.
“Who do you say I am?” The NIV captures the urgent personal emphasis and the life and death probing of the original. What do you yourself think? Your answer to this question fixes your eternal destiny!
Notice also how important it is to say what we think about Jesus. Heart and mouth must work together, for a merely inward faith is no faith at all (Rom. 10:8-11).

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matt. 16:16)

The Christ is the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Divine and Saving Prophet, Priest, and King promised on every page of the Old Testament (Luke 24:27). And Jesus is the eternal “Son of the Living God” in a way that no one else is or ever can be (John 1:1-3).
Like King Josiah before him, Peter smashes down the idols to leave nothing but the One True Jesus Christ.

Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.” (Matt. 16:17)

The makarios, the blessed, is the one who should count themselves truly happy. This is the person the world should congratulate (see Matt. 5:3-10).
Why is Peter so blessed? Because, literally, no “flesh and blood” had brought him to this truth, least of all himself. He was blessed because the truth he had owned and expressed had been revealed (apokalyptō) by “my Father.” He had only believed and said what the Father had, first of all, placed there.
“You are one of the happy ones, Simon, whose father is Jonah, because my Father in Heaven has come and opened your eyes and mouth to say what you have just said.”
Just as Jesus prayed in Matthew 11:25-26,

I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

And now Jesus, just as he did with Jacob after wrestling with him at Peniel (Gen. 32), confirms a new name upon Peter (John 1:42).

And I tell you that you are Peter (petros), and on this rock (petra) I will build my church. (Matt. 16:18a)

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Creation, however, does not tell us all that we need to know. It doesn’t explain why things aren’t right in the world. It doesn’t tell us about our sin, our need of forgiveness. It doesn’t tell us about the mercy of God, and the gift of his Son to die for us. It can’t show us how to repent and believe in the Savior to find eternal life. So, it is good news that God has given us his word in writing. 

If God is there, why doesn’t he show himself?” I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard this.
King David answers this question brilliantly in Psalm 19. “He does!” says David. God does show himself to the world in two very different but complementary ways:
First, God shows himself to us in his creation. This is called general revelation.

The heavens declare the glory of God,and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.Day to day pours out speech,and night to night reveals knowledge.There is no speech, nor are there words,whose voice is not heard. (Ps. 19:1-3)

The fact that anything exists is evidence of a self-existent Creator.[1] For it is true that “Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.” Moreover, all that does exist bears remarkable structure, form, and design.
From the configuration of the atoms to the astonishingly intricate complexity of proteins and other basic building blocks of living cells to the movement of the stars and galaxies all of these “declare the glory of God” and “proclaim his handiwork.”
The great scientist Jane Goodall described a moment in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris late on a sunny day in the 1974.
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