Jesus is incredibly clear in his warning of Matthew 12:36–37: “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Even our careless words will be judged! That ought to make us pause. This means that the words we speak publicly and privately, carefully, intentionally, or even without thought, will all be judged. 

One of the reasons I absolutely love expository preaching and insist that pastors preach verse-by-verse through books of the Bible for their congregations is because the Word of God is always timely. Rather than preaching hobby-horses or tired and trite topics of interest, expository preaching, when done well, forces the pastor to faithfully handle the texts of Scripture as they come down the pipeline. There’s no guessing about what’s coming next Sunday for the congregation, either. They can rest in the assurance that—Lord-willing—the preaching will pick up in the text where it left off the previous Sunday.
Some, however, worry that expository preaching prevents pastors from engaging with pressing topics of the times. This, however, is hardly ever the case. Our sovereign God has a peculiar way of lining our preaching texts up with pressing events in often unexpected ways.
This was my experience very recently as I have been preaching through the Gospel of Matthew for nearly a year-and-a-half. Recently, there has been some talk about the use of vulgar language by certain evangelicals, and some in our congregation (and some friends outside of our congregation, too), have been asking me about how Christians should understand the use of language. As the Lord would have it, amid these questions, Matthew 12:33–37 lined up as my next sermon, and perfectly answered many of these questions. Below, I will share some highlights from this sermon about Christian speech.
Your Actions and Words Are the Fruit That Reveal Where You Are Rooted
Jesus makes the issue clear. Those who are in Christ ought to speak and act in a righteous way, because, as he plainly states in Matthew 12:33, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.”
Jesus uses the metaphor of the tree and its fruit on more than one occasion and it’s incredibly simple to understand. If I’m a branch on an apple tree, what kind of fruit will I bear? Apples. No one expects to find oranges on an apple tree because a tree will always bear fruit corresponding to the type of tree it is. If an apple tree bears oranges, something has gone horribly askew. It simply isn’t possible. It is, ultimately, against the nature of the branches to bear fruit differing from the rest of the tree.
So it is with people. If we’re saved and rooted in Christ, we’ll be marked by holy speech and righteous deeds. If we’re lost and chained to sin, we’ll be marked by evil speech and wicked deeds. Thus, Jesus said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:4–5).
While we know we are not saved by our works, but by faith in Christ alone, yet it is true that a Christian is known by their speech and actions. Hence, there are evidences of salvation, and our speech is one major evidence of whether or not we’re saved and indwelled by the Holy Spirit.
What Fills the Heart Moves the Mouth
In Matthew 12:34, Jesus is speaking directly to the Pharisees whose pretense and facade of apparent righteousness fell apart when they opened their mouths. Jesus rebuked them and explained, “You brood of vipers! How can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. This is as straightforward as the previous verse. What you have been filled with will ultimately spill out of you. Whatever occupies your heart will control your tongue.
It would, perhaps, be simple enough to say that this verse simply warns us against foul language, swearing, and cussing. However, this verse means even more still. The context of this rebuke is the larger issue of how the Pharisees have blasphemed Jesus by accusing him of being demon possessed. Rather than praise Jesus for his miracles, the Pharisees blasphemed Christ by claiming “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons” (Matt. 12:24). What makes this language so wicked, sinful, evil, and blasphemous is that it lies about who Jesus truly is, while simultaneously ascribing the miracles he was performing to Satan. Such an accusation tried to rob God of his rightful glory while ascribing the glory to Satan instead. In the process of such a wicked accusation, the Pharisees revealed both their wicked hearts and their sinful allegiance to Satan.
Jesus, knowing this, said of the Pharisees in John 8:44 that, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Those who try to pretend to be righteous will, eventually, be revealed by their language. Their true colors will eventually show. They will, by mere words, reveal where their allegiance lies—whether they belong to Christ or Satan.
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God expected that we would love him, but we failed point blank to meet that expectation. He himself, in his Son, did for us what he expected of us, loving us to the point of offering his Son for our sins to make us his own. God’s love did not end in wishful thinking, he washed us with the blood of his Son, fulfilling his own expectation so that we can have a relationship with him.

Most devotional books present one or two verses of the Bible each day and give a brief explanation of them. Many Christians use these devotional books and never study the Bible on their own. But if you were to study the Bible on your own, how could you make sense of a Bible verse? How could you find its meaning? How could you do your own daily devotions? With only a little attention to the context and careful reading, below I want to demonstrate that you can read the Bible for yourself. With understanding. So let’s apply this to a verse that has often been called the Golden Rule.
In Matthew 7:12 Jesus says, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them for this is the law and the prophets.”
The Golden Rule in Context
The first step to understanding a Bible verse is to consider its context. What comes before this verse? Well, immediately before it we have Jesus’ teaching on prayer (Matthew 7:7-11). And before that, a sermon that Jesus is preaching to his disciples (Matthew 5:1-7:6). You know this as the Sermon on the Mount. Throughout this sermon, Jesus shows his disciples what kind of righteousness is required to enter the kingdom of heaven. He gives many specific commands touching on anger, lust, divorce, and more. 
Is Jesus saying something new in Matthew 7:12? No, this verse acts as a summary of all these previous commands for a righteous life. The commands—to not be angry with a brother, not to look at a woman and lust after her, to not divorce, to not take oaths, to not take vengeance, to love your enemies, to not judge others—are well summed up by the Golden Rule. “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.”
If we obey this one command, we will obey all the others, fulfilling the Law and the Prophets. To love God and to love our neighbours as ourselves (see Matthew 22:34-40).
What Matthew 7:12 Doesn’t Teach
Now that we have the context, let us look at the verse itself. First, let’s think about what the verse does not say. Jesus does not say whatever others have done for you do also to them. He does not say, let others treat you well and based on their example you treat them the same way. The Law and the Prophets do not teach that we wait for others to reach out to us in love so that we can reach out to them in love. It is selfish, self-centered, and prideful to wait to be loved. Waiting for others to love you first says, “I am important. You are not. I am king. Everyone else is my servant.” The righteousness God requires loves differently. 
Jesus says, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” The verse does not suggest that others have fulfilled our expectation of them yet, it is at the level of our wishing still.
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If you will accept it, this is written not in belligerence and quarreling, nor to fulfill a salacious need to ‘fight a culture war’ or engage in doom-mongering, but to give you a frank, unfettered testimony to how your deeds appear to someone in the pews; and judging by the conversations and correspondence I have had with other members, this perception of you is by no means unique to me. Repent of your secrecy and of your scandalous deeds.

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
A Final Concern
You seem to regard alcohol with excessive fondness. In speaking of a candidate for moderator you speak of his service and virtues and say that “this is not to mention his collection of whiskeys and his willingness to kindly share them.” In praising the vigor of the new members of your organization you say that they “were asking good questions, crafting motions, present for every major vote, worshipping well at the evening services, and keeping up with our whiskey consumption,” while elsewhere gratitude is extended “for working together, and for stepping into the gap when it was needed on committee reports, microphones, bottles of bourbon and cigars” and a reference is made to “a well-deserved beer after a long business meeting.” An observer may be forgiven for thinking there is something a little inappropriate in elders regarding themselves as ‘deserving’ a beer after doing denominational work, or in equating an elder’s possession of a fine whiskey collection with his years of service, to say nothing of putting “worshipping well” and “keeping up with our whiskey consumption” alongside of each other.
Now maybe you will object and note that you forewent beer in order to vote, as is stated several times, but it is curious that this seems to be, not so much restraint, but a practical necessity to advance your agenda: take a break from your drinking to come and vote, not because it is inappropriate for an elder to be out on the town during a week that he is supposed to be doing the grave, consequential work of the church of Christ but because the agenda needs your support. It is curious too that these rejoinders to abstain are frequently accompanied by an assurance that it will be compensated for by an occasion for communal drinking later, and that it is often enjoined that voting times are not a good time to get a beer, but somewhat less frequently that they are poor times to get coffee, read a newspaper, go for a stroll, make phone calls, or any of the other things an elder might be expected to do between assembly sessions.
Laying aside that this comes across as simply immature and juvenile, there are some pointed statements about such things in Scripture. As for your newer members doing well by keeping up with the whiskey consumption of the old hands, Isaiah testifies “Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink” (5:22); while for his part Hosea condemns the faithless inhabitants of Israel because they “cherish whoredom, wine, and new wine, which take away the understanding” (Hos. 4:10-11). In Prov. 31:4-5 Lemuel says that “It is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.” The principle applies to elders as well: for as kings were the civil shepherds who were responsible for the temporal order, justice, and wellbeing of the people, so are elders responsible for the order, discipline, and fidelity of the spiritual commonwealth that is the church – yet their need for sobriety is greater, for they deal with questions of eternal significance, rather than ones of a merely earthly nature.
The New Testament supplies further instruction on this point, for it says of the man qualified to be an elder that he is “not (one who lingers) beside (his) wine” (1 Tim. 3:2, Hendriksen-Kistemaker commentary translation), while it elsewhere states that “It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble” (Rom. 14:21). That last verse establishes the duty that all believers have to respect the rights of conscience of their brothers in matters that are unessential to the faith (v. 17), a duty you seem to forget in this matter. There are and have been numerous Presbyterians who are teetotalers, both within our denomination and in others such as the ARP, and to see your cavalier attitude toward drink is no doubt a source of offense to them. In addition, there is a much larger body of people, again within our denomination and outside its fold, that have struggled with alcohol addiction and abuse, and your behavior provides a terrible example and testimony to them. In this matter you disobey the great principle of Romans 14, and you ought to give thought that your actions may well lead others to stumble or otherwise limit the effectiveness of your ministry.
Perhaps you will rejoin that the talk of hardy drinking is all in jest; fair enough, but does Scripture condone such coarse jesting as appropriate for those that would rule Christ’s church? Does it not rather say that “All impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints” and that there should be “no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking” (Eph. 5:3-4)? Or perhaps you will say that drinking is no sin and that it is excessive drinking that is the problem that ought to be foregone. There are sins besides excessive consumption that come into play in relation to alcohol: an excessive fondness of it (especially one that values it above good testimony and brotherly respect) or an excessive tendency to look to it to relieve distress (as in ‘deserving a beer’) are also faults in this respect, and they seem to show in your speech about alcohol. Then, too, excess is not always a question of drunkenness, as there are occasions where any consumption of alcohol is inappropriate, most notably in handling matters of great importance, whether temporal or eternal, civil or ecclesiastical. Our society frankly worships alcohol and our job as believers should be to extol its responsible use and a right attitude about it, and this is undercut when you join in the beer and whiskey worship yourselves.
Last, in this your behavior in this matter is like that of the old liberals in the PCUS, who loved drink and made wide use of it. Kennedy Smartt says in his I Am Reminded that some of them even gave drink to underage assembly attendants, and that the disgust this lawbreaking engendered was part of the impetus for desiring to be separate from such people, while an early PCA history mentions how the groups that laid the groundwork for the PCA sometimes received the PCUS liberals’ bar bills by mistake.
A Final Objection
Now you may object that much of this criticism proceeds on the assumption that the National Partnership is one, where in fact you have – and celebrate! – diversity of thought, voting habits, and manners of internal and external expression. You are both one and many. You have one purpose, one program, one agenda, and while there may be some diversity of thought or voting, it yet occurs within the scope of achieving the one, agreed-upon aim that you all share of giving the denomination the character you desire. As for those of you who have qualms with some of the precise behavior of some of your members that I have criticized here, consider the instruction God gives you: “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals’” (1 Cor. 15:33). You are the company you keep (comp. Prov. 13:20), and as for those of you who do not approve some of the behavior or beliefs condemned here, why persist in keeping such company or in following the lead of those that do such things? Is it safe or wise to do so, or is it rather likely to bring you trouble (like Jehoshaphat allying with Ahab, 2 Chron. 18:1-19:2) and needless grief?
A Final Appeal
If you will accept it, this is written not in belligerence and quarreling, nor to fulfill a salacious need to ‘fight a culture war’ or engage in doom-mongering, but to give you a frank, unfettered testimony to how your deeds appear to someone in the pews; and judging by the conversations and correspondence I have had with other members, this perception of you is by no means unique to me. Repent of your secrecy and of your scandalous deeds. You have done an outrageous thing in Israel and have left a bad testimony to others both within and outside of our fold. You have despised both shepherds and sheep, and have sought to use our denomination for your own ends, rather than to serve it in humility and submission for the good of the sheep. Time will fail to tell of your failure to “be above reproach” (1 Tim 3:2) in these things; and however much you may be inclined to deny that, as you have for years, there is no sense of that phrase which is met by your secretive doings or by many of the things you have said or done. Repent in haste, with fullness of heart and sincerity of purpose, for this word stands, and it should give us all an occasion to fear: “For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God” (1 Pet. 4:17).
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Simpsonville, S.C.