Careless Words

The Scriptures tell us to be careful with our words. It seems that there are those in Christendom that are not heeding that. I am sure you have heard about the North Carolina pastor who recently said in a sermon that gays and lesbians should be put in an electrified fence area so that they will eventually die out. If you have not heard about it, you can read about it here. Now there is another video that has surfaced of a toddler singing about gays not making it into heaven to thunderous applause and cheers of the church service he was a part of. If you haven't seen that you can see that here.

I have been thinking quite a bit about this and have a few thoughts on these incidents. First, standing up against sin does not give Christians the right to be careless with our words. We are warned by our Lord that one day we will give an account for every word we have spoken (Matthew 12:36). We are told in Proverbs that reckless words pierce like a sword (Proverbs 12:18). Attempting to make fun of sin or act self-righteous in our stand for true marriage is not advancing the cause. It is only hurting it.

Secondly, those who are quick to point out the verbal mis-steps of a few Christians fail to do so when their own side starts throwing flagrant verbal fouls. Of course there was Rosie O'Donnel comparing radical Islam to radical Christianity as being one and the same (in essence saying that Christians are no different than the terrorists of 9/11. Then there's the more recent incident of Dan Savage spewing hate toward Christians. I heard no one condemning these remarks from the gay community.

Reckless, careless words cannot be only one-sided. It is extremely hypocritical of the homosexual community to condemn a Christian who is out of line and not do so when one of their own is as well. Make no mistake about this either. Social media is only adding fuel to these fires. The videos of the goofy Christian guy are going to go viral a lot quicker than the hate speech videos of a gay activist.

As Christians we have a mandate and a prime responsibility to be careful with our speech (Colossians 4:6). If you didn't think so before Facebook, now it is even more pertinent. The world is watching. Many living in darkness are just waiting for another Christian to make a fool of him or herself so that they can plaster that all over the internet for the world to see just how foolish Christians are.

Our message needs to be clear. Homosexuality is sin. Marriage is between one man and one woman for life. But there is no good done when a Christian uses derogatory language or crude terminology to describe homosexuality. One can hardly imagine Jesus being impolite or rude or speaking to people in a demeaning way. There is no place for that kind of behavior. This is the approach of people like the very un-Christlike individuals at Westboro Baptist.

That is exactly what those in the homosexual movement want to portray anyone who opposes homosexuality as. Don't give the other side more ammo in this fight for truth.