When a man cannot stop talking, something is terribly wrong. That is especially true among the people of God, where self-control should be at a premium.
Scripture is consistent from beginning to end in warning about the hazards of uncurated communication. Most recently, Ecclesiastes reminded me, “Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.”
In that case, I believe Solomon was concerned about rash vows rather than babbling in worship, petition or confession. Nevertheless, caution in the presence of the Almighty is always prudent.
Self-Editing as a Moral Requirement
Scripture condemns all loose lips, not just those flapping to God in prayer. The OT wisdom literature is full of this sort of caution:
“When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.”
“Whoever restrains his words has knowledge … even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.”
Jesus taught that self-editing is a moral requirement and that God will assess our success at it:
“I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.”
James famously wrote about the wisdom of keeping one’s tongue on a short leash:
“Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak …”
“The tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.”
That’s not difficult to read, but it’s much harder to change ingrained bad habits.
A Multitude of Words
Even the best kinds of speech need careful monitoring. The subject may be the scripture, and the venue may be the church. Still, the more you talk, the more potential there is for error:
“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.”
Most of our readers are well aware of the Bible’s teaching on this subject. What both the world and the church need is not freer and more effusive bouts of self-expression, but more attentive management of the self-expression already going on.
What is true of the tongue is equally true of pen, or, more often these days, the keyboard of the PC, Mac or phone. Christians need to be careful not just what we write about, but also how much we write when engaging with others. Whether it’s the expression of opinion or the exposition of scripture, shorter is almost always better. Three lean, well-crafted sentences are more memorable than ten badly-written ones.
Understand, I’m not talking about essays or blog posts here, though it is always both wise and useful to self-edit everything we write to maximize clarity for the reader and to make a point as concisely and unambiguously as words allow. Nevertheless, the reality is that if we find an internet post we are reading runs on too long for our taste, we can easily check out after a few lines. If we find the same writer failing to edit his content with discretion day after day, we simply won’t navigate to his website, and that will be that.
No, I’m thinking here of situations in which two or more Christians are exchanging ideas online or in person in an effort to teach one another or come to an accurate understanding of the truth and one of them has no idea when to quit blathering. In the era of social media, self-management is king.
The Wall of Text
Those on the internet daily will not need an explanation of the term “wall of text”. It refers to the inability of some writers to explain an idea, make an argument, tell a story (or sometimes even ask a question) concisely. A wall of text is an egregious misuse of time, energy, opportunity and sometimes even spiritual gift.
You cannot miss a wall of text when you encounter it. I was reading a letters column online the other day and encountered a prime example. The column consisted of about thirty questions and comments from readers. Some were only a line or two, and the average was between ten and fifteen lines of copy. Most were at least somewhat profitable, and I read them all. About halfway down my scroll, I encountered a wall of text: sixty lines, four or five times longer than every other post, in a single, sprawling paragraph. The writer was so clearly infatuated with his own thoughts that the disservice he had done to readers trying to make head or tail of what he was saying was evidently the furthest thing from his mind. I could see there were better ways to use my time than to try to make sense of something even the author couldn’t. I read the first five lines, gave up and moved on. I guarantee so did everyone else reading, including and especially his wife.
Ratios and Repartee
Have you ever paid attention to how much you talk compared to how much you listen? It’s a very instructive exercise to go into any discussion determined to keep track of your own contribution rather than just rattling away with no filter in place. Both verbal and written self-management are skills I’ve had to learn over years and still fight with from time to time. Logic and Christian humility dictate that in a decent two-person conversation, a respectful and mutually agreeable ratio of output to input will be in the neighborhood of 50:50, in a three-person conversation 33:33:33, and so on. The wiser, more mature believers are usually on the lower end, maybe occupying 35-40% of the conversational space, while self-involved blowhards and pedants will interrupt, overtalk and otherwise usurp as much air as you will give them … and more. The same tends to be true in online conversations.
When we don’t self-edit, the very best thing that can happen is that our potential audience stops paying attention and misses the point we are trying to make. How can we blame them? We have driven them to it. But it means we get no feedback and get no closer to learning anything useful, and it means nobody else learns anything either. That’s a shame. Just because a man or woman can’t self-edit doesn’t mean they never say anything profitable or helpful. It just means any nugget of wisdom he may have to offer comes so deeply buried in a sea of verbal or textual detritus that nobody will ever hear it, read it or profit from it.
A Word in Season
When I think about it, the most profitable conversations I’ve ever had were with men and women who don’t say much. They have learned to condense an idea or response into as little as a single sentence. Guess what? I remembered what they said for the rest of my life, put those things into practice and lived by them.
If you ever wonder why you’re not enjoying “fellowship time” at your local church, spend next Sunday paying greater attention to how much verbal space you occupy. In most cases, you will maximize the spiritual benefit of what you have to say for everyone by cutting it back to the bare minimum and replacing interjections, smart comments and long stories with active listening, silent eye contact and encouraging nods.
And if you ever wonder why nobody engages with your commentary online, have a look at the volume you are putting out. You may have something genuinely profitable to share, but it’ll only be of benefit if people can easily find it.
Sometimes a word in season is … just that. A word.
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