The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 113 - The Tongue: Small But Mighty (And Dangerous!)
The human mouth—seemingly simple yet profoundly complex—reveals extraordinary theological insights about our relationship with God and each other. In this thought-provoking exploration, we unpack how this single body part performs multiple critical functions that define our humanity: breathing, eating, speaking, and connecting intimately.
What makes our examination particularly revealing is how Scripture consistently emphasizes the mouth's power, especially through speech. While we often focus on physical strength, the Bible suggests our tongues hold far greater potential for both creation and destruction. "The tongue has the power of life and death," warns Proverbs, while James describes it as "a fire" capable of corrupting our entire being.
The metaphors are striking—a small rudder steering massive ships, a spark igniting forest fires—all illustrating how this tiny organ directs our lives. Most sobering is James' observation that "no human can tame the tongue," highlighting our dependence on divine grace for speech that brings life rather than death.
Against our culture's celebration of uninhibited self-expression, Scripture consistently advises restraint: "God is in heaven, you are on earth, so let your words be few." This wisdom acknowledges the deceitfulness of the human heart, suggesting that silence often proves wiser than speech. Consider how Jesus himself, the perfect Word made flesh, spoke with extraordinary precision and purpose—never wasting words yet changing lives with simple commands.
When we examine the mouth's complexity—from lips that act as gatekeepers to teeth that protect and process to the tongue that both tastes and speaks—we witness divine design integrating physical and spiritual functions. Perhaps most profound is Deuteronomy's revelation that "man does not live on bread alone, but on every word from the mouth of the Lord," suggesting our deepest sustenance comes not through what enters our mouths but through what proceeds from God's.
How might your relationships transform if you listened twice as much as you spoke? What would change if you remembered that every word will eventually be accounted for? Join us as we discover how this small body part reveals enormous spiritual truths about our created purpose and potential.
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the next episode of the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization. And we're continuing to look at the theology of the human body and we're on to the mouth and the complexity of our mouths. They have several parts to them Now the mouth and the nose that we were thinking about last time, the nose, and mouth and nose are very connected at the back of the throat and when a person loses their sense of smell, sometimes for quite a long period of time, what with Covid and so on. But let's just first of all think about the uses or functions of the human mouth. We can think about breathing and how it's a backup to breathing through the nose. The nose is the normal way of breathing, but we may also breathe through our mouths if our noses are blocked. So breathing but eating, and we need to think about eating, speaking, and that's how the mouth is mostly described in the Bible in terms of speaking, but also kissing.
Speaker 1:Eating, breathing, speaking, kissing All these are key parts of life that involve the human mouth and we need to just think carefully about that. Such a range of activities focused in this one body part. The Lord, god, designed us so that this one body part the scream, can whisper and can connect in intimacy. So it has a taking in aspect food and air and liquid but also a giving out words, communication but also intimacy. So our mouth is the way we get sustenance, but give communication and make connection. Now, if we were to explore all that, it just seems too much for one body part to handle and that takes us down into the fact that in truth it is not one body part but several, and we're grouping together the lips, teeth, tongue, and each of them has a different role to play in all of these activities. The lips, for example. Let's just think about lips a little bit to formulate words, and there's a whole kind of practice about to open the mouth and use the lips more to make words more distinct and articulated more clearly. So lips hugely important in the formulation of words, but then they become the great central actor when it comes to kissing.
Speaker 1:So Psalm 34, verse 1, about lips. Let's just focus in on some of the things scripture says about lips. Psalm 34, verse 1. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise will always be on my lips. Well, that one has made me think a bit, because it can't be that our lips are just continually engaged in articulating praise, songs and things, but it seems to be more that whatever we do with our lips, whether eating, breathing, speaking or kissing, all of that is done and governed by and centered on the glory of God. So then that means that if the praise of the Lord is always on my lips, it does like yeah, there's a lot of articulating praise, but all these, all these areas of life are to be about, like, exalting the Lord, showing off the Lord, manifesting his glory. So lips show affection in both kissing and praising.
Speaker 1:Proverbs 12, verse 22 says this lying lips are detestable to the Lord, but those who deal faithfully are his delight with the lips can be turned to corruption if our lips pretend to have affection when really there's hatred, indifference, abuse or manipulation. So that ability of the lips to portray a level of affection that may not be real, so Jesus can say look, your lips are near to me, but your hearts are far from me, and that strong way in which there can be a huge discrepancy between the activities and communication of the lips, and then he's betrayed by a kiss. Judas comes and kisses him with his lips, kisses Jesus, and yet his heart is betraying him. He's really betraying Jesus. He's betraying him. He's really betraying Jesus. So, lips, lying lips, proverbs 12, 22. And that's detestable to the Lord, because lips should be truthful, both in communication but also affection someone and if we're not sure, if we're not loving them, then to kiss them in an act of betrayal or deception or manipulation. The lord finds that detestable. He wants everything to be straightforward, um, affections, communication, connection, everything, um.
Speaker 1:And I think there's also a way in which lying lips is about our food and drink as well, and how we can take in far more than we need. And there's something deceitful about that. But we'll leave that for a moment. But that's why Psalm 141, verse 3, is important, because there it says Set a guard, o Lord, over my mouth, keep watch at the door of my lips, guard my mouth, keep watch at the door of my lips. So there it's this way in which the mouth has to have guardians, gatekeepers. Lips are important as this gatekeeper, the door, the yes regulating what we say, so we can purse our lips. And so, like, clench our lips together and purse our lips and we can do that like in order to or you might even we talk about, if we want to say something, and then we stop ourselves saying it.
Speaker 1:One expression in English is we bite our tongue and it's as if to say we're kind of preventing our tongue saying something. There it's not so much the lips but the teeth there or the guard to like bite down on our tongue so that we don't say what shouldn't be said. And we bite our tongue or we purse our lips and then that's like forming the teeth or the lips form like a barrier then to say no, I'm not going to say this thing. But this idea of being a door, a regator, a guard, yes, to step in and cut off our words, but also to prevent us eating and drinking, and that ability to say, to close our mouth and not to take in greedily gluttony. Gluttony is an alcoholism and substance abuse and all kinds of ways that we would say no, I need to set a guard over my mouth so that my mouth is closed and stays closed when it needs to do, so that I do not take in what I shouldn't and I do not give out what I shouldn't and I do not give out what I shouldn't.
Speaker 1:Hugely important. So the teeth. We've thought about the lips in that way, but teeth as well are, you know, let's think about those, because that protecting role, the guardian role, and then we can clench our teeth when we are tense. And then why do we do that we're biting down when we are tense. And then why do we do that we're biting down? And sometimes people suffer by they grind their teeth at night and damage their teeth because there's so much tension and stress, and it's that that is, um, bound up with this kind of grinding, uh, work that goes on, and there's um, uh, what are the teeth trying to do? Protect, release tension.
Speaker 1:And then that the Bible talks about people gnashing their teeth and the idea sometimes is that people gnash their teeth in pain. But in the Bible, gnashing teeth is really about anger. Angry people like bite, the like, it's like the teeth are snapping, gnashing. It's a biting sound and action because they're so angry and they show their teeth and snap their teeth, kind of and that's interesting, the gnashing of teeth to show anger. And then the Bible talks about teeth being broken as a way of preventing angry people doing harm. And Lord break their teeth as if that ability of them to do harm with their mouths needs to be taken away.
Speaker 1:So teeth and yeah, teeth do their main work perhaps in eating, eating food, and our teeth are immensely important for grinding up the food, and that comes there's, I know they the idea of the clean animals that chew the cud and have that ability to kind of work on food and, uh, to make it more digestible for the, the way the digestive system is set up, and then that idea is is conveyed with the idea that there's something good about that, to chew on something properly so that it is uh, it's like to do with meditating, uh, taking time to appreciate something. We chew on it, we meditate on it, and that I that that an analogy of eating more slowly is better for us and the food is enjoyed, appreciated, so if it's gulp down, we eat too much. If we eat more slowly, we tend to eat the right amount, and then that kind of analogy goes over into our thinking and wisdom. Now the tongue is more involved in eating and then, as we thought, the tongue unites with our noses to give us taste. And the tongue is a much, much bigger organ, it's a huge muscle, the tongue with this taste capacity, and it unites with our noses to give us this overall experience of taste with smell, and the tongue creates this vast range of taste sensations, from the kind of simple palette of bitter, sour, salty and sweet. Now it was once thought that those four basic tastes bitter, sour, salty and sweet were allocated to specific zones on the tongue, and I seem to remember that there were kind of diagrams that indicated that this part of the tongue detects salty things and this part is sour things, and as if certain parts of the tongue were exclusively given over to say sweetness or something like that, sweetness or something like that. But now I think that's completely abandoned, because it does seem clear that every part of the tongue has capacity for experience all these available tastes, but it's out of this, it seems, like a relatively small palette of tastes bitter, sour, salty and sweet. We get such an incredible range and complexity of taste sensation, and so the Lord has created all these possible ingredients that yield this unbelievably, almost infinitely diverse range of tastes and sensations for food.
Speaker 1:And it's as if it's obvious that whoever designed this world with all the possibilities for food is a food lover, a food lover, and it's not surprising it how, in the ministry of Jesus, he seems to spend, isn't it, about a third of the time at meal table environments, at feasts and uh yeah, around food table fellowship. Even in the old testament, exodus 24, there's that extraordinary uh moment where moses, aaron and the 70 elders of israel go up the mountain and meet god, the, and it just says they saw the God of Israel and they ate and drank as if. Obviously, if you're going to engage with God, there's going to be food and drink, because that's the creator who made us, made us and our environment. Obviously there's got to be food and drink involved, like you can't have a god who can't eat and drink. That would be like that. Well, there are gods who claim, who say they can't eat and drink, but obviously they cannot have created the heavens and the earth. The creator of the heavens and the earth obviously loves food and drink and that, and he's given us this tongue. But, um, actually it's not in taste that the tongue is primarily seen in the Bible, it's speech Speech.
Speaker 1:The tongue performs its most powerful role, certainly from the Bible's perspective, the ability of the mouth to speak that the Bible focuses on. And the tongue expresses who we really are. And someone said I can't know what you were thinking unless you tell me. That's the sort of thing where sometimes husbands and wives and we'll say what are you thinking? And there's this imagination that they're thinking something very interesting or or, uh, romantic or something, but it's nearly always what they're actually thinking is something quite mundane and boring. But we always imagine, oh, they're thinking something deep or wonderful, whereas. And then we're like tell me, let your I want your tongue to give me the insight into your inner life. And that's what that's what speech is about and it's worth meditating on that. That we might think it's good to express your inner self and there's a huge emphasis on that in our contemporary world, the idea it's good to express your inner life.
Speaker 1:But the Bible is much more sceptical of that. Because we seem to imagine a person's inner life is a good thing and there's lots in there that's worth getting out, expressing, pressing it outwards, what's going on inwards, whereas the Bible's much more sceptical of that. And in the Bible, whereas the Bible's much more sceptical of that, and in the Bible, the general advice is keep quiet, don't say very much. Why? Because the human heart is deeply messed up, it's deeply deceitful. You can't get.
Speaker 1:Because the idea I think is and sometimes those of us who've been in therapy situations the idea is we'll dig into this inner mess of the human heart and we'll be able to get out all the problems and solve it. We'll get to the bottom. All the bad things are out and dealt with and solved, and now what's left inside is ordered and clean and good and good. But that is an unbelievably false view of the human heart. In fact, we dig into this thing and, as the Bible says Jeremiah 17, 9, the human heart is the maximally deceitful thing, deceitful above everything else and desperately wicked.
Speaker 1:The human heart. No one can understand it. And then it says but the Lord can, the Lord can test it anyway, and the Lord can diagnose how bad it is. And so there's that way in which we believe we can heal ourselves. If we could only express all that's within us and that if we get it all out, it's solved. And then that isn't what happens. It's much more complicated to fix the human heart, and the lord actually doesn't try to fix it. He gives us a new one. He says let's just kill that one and give you a new heart. Well, that's a whole nother. We'll get to the heart on another talk.
Speaker 1:But now this idea, though, is that the tongue expresses what's going on within us, and that is a very in the Bible. That's a dangerous, complicated thing, and the general advice in the Bible is say far less than you do. That's the general advice. Better to keep quiet, because what comes out is basically bad and we think no, but we can say good things. Yeah, there is the possibility of that, but the Bible's general view is you're not going to say good things, it's overwhelmingly likely that your speech will be more harmful than good. And so the tongue is the body's most powerful organ, far more able to destroy or build up than our arms or legs. We might sort of flex our bicep and say look how strong I am, this is to demonstrate my strength, whereas in a way the Bible would say no, that doesn't tell me about your strength, because the most powerful thing is your tongue. We need to hear you speak, listen in to you for a week, what you say and how you say it. Then we can determine the real strength capacity of a person. There's enormous power in the human mouth, but particularly the tongue, and so, with that in mind, there's the James 3, verses 3 to 11. I'm going to actually read the whole of James 3, 3 to 11, because it's a passage that I have read many, many times in relation to this and it always strikes me so powerfully. This is what James says into the mouths of horses to make them obeyers.
Speaker 1:We can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, these ships are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body.
Speaker 1:The tongue corrupts the whole person. The tongue corrupts the whole person. The tongue sets the whole course of his life on fire and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed, and they have been tamed by human beings. But no human can tame the tongue. The tongue is a restless evil full of deadly poison. Deadly poison.
Speaker 1:With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father and with it we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth comes praise and cursing. Praise and cursing my brothers. This shouldn't be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring. My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives or a grapevine bear figs. Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
Speaker 1:So, james, there is really digging in hard to say if evil is coming out of our mouths and we say ah, but there's also some good things that I say. We say ah, but there's also some good things that I say. James is really saying ah, but it's the same mouth and there's it's an evil mouth. Just because you think there's good words coming out, is it really good? Like what is the nature of the tree if it can produce cursing and evil and poison?
Speaker 1:And and the power of words, it's something we can meditate on a lot. How words. Sometimes people say, well, it's only words, it doesn't matter. The idea is it doesn't matter, it's only words, words can't hurt me. But that isn't true In the Bible. Someone that was said recently was oh, we've learned in our day and age the power of words, and I'm like wow, the Bible was way ahead on this. There's enormous amounts in the Bible about the power of words, even single words like the word fool or worse modern equivalents. But let's just take the word fool and that one word, an insult. And there's many words racial slurs, all kinds of single words that can be uttered that can be devastatingly painful and destructive.
Speaker 1:But we also might say I love you and if that's meant and in the right context, and again enormously powerful, or just the words thank you, please, thank you, help to cry for help and the lord. If we cry to the lord for help, I often say the most powerful prayer perhaps we ever say is that single word help. Or often the example is given if a person cries out the word fire in a crowded building, just doing that can create a not like it depends, are they actually warning about a fire? Or if they cry that and then there's a stampede and people get injured and so you just think that want to cry out that single word can absolutely change a situation.
Speaker 1:We might say I hate you to somebody and mean it, or sometimes just the word welcome. I've increasingly feel that to have people when we gather as church and to have people whose job is only really to say to people welcome and to mean that and to convey that, is like pricelessly important. To say to a person you're worthless, worthless, you're a nobody, you're nothing. Or a person might kneel down and say will you marry me? Those words change an entire life, an entire life. So words can cause such pain and hurt, can change lives for good or ill.
Speaker 1:One call for help you can be saved can change lives for good or ill. One call for help, you can be saved. You could lead someone to eternal life with your words. You could drive them away. But I do want to think on that positively before we just think about more of the warnings about the tongue. I love Joel 2, verse 32. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I want to leave that. I want to have that positive one to say that that crying to the Lord for help, you will be saved. You do that and you mean it. You will be saved. That's the promise. There won't be anybody lost who has genuinely called out to the lord for help.
Speaker 1:But proverbs 12, verse 6, says reckless words pierce like swords. Or proverbs 21, verse a tongue can keep someone from calamity. So a tongue can issue a warning and pull someone away from danger. Proverbs 12, 18, a tongue can heal. But Proverbs 15, verse 4, a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.
Speaker 1:Again, that idea of deceit and lying is a big theme. There is so much better. Be silent or be truthful, but don't be deceitful Because, as Proverbs 17, 20 says, a lying tongue gets you in trouble. Lying lies get you in trouble. They're so easy to use to get to the idea is it'll get us out of trouble or get us what we want. And yet the Lord's like no better to be silent. Let your words be few. God is in heaven. You are on earth. May your words be few. You're better not to speak because lying will get you in trouble. So Proverbs 18, 21,. The tongue has the power of life and death. That's the kind of theme verse, isn't it? Proverbs 18, 21,. The tongue has the power of life and death.
Speaker 1:We may say all kinds of things that we say we don't mean. But I think we often and I remember I've mentioned this before but the way that a bouncer would say when a person's drunk or tired and they say things then and later they must say I didn't mean that. But really the truth is, yeah, they really did mean that. And now that they sobered up or had a sleep, they might say I wish I hadn't said that. But it isn't the case that they didn't mean it. They did mean it, but it isn't the case that they didn't mean it. They did mean it, but they weren't able to filter their words, they weren't able to hide what was really in their hearts, and that people under stress or drunkenness can send emails or make phone calls or say things.
Speaker 1:And they'll say things that are, you know, full of bigotry and hatred and they wish they hadn't said it because something about them has been revealed. We're not saying here if a person has said something, and they did, they genuinely have been misunderstood or they've miscommunicated, but it's really quite often they'll say something that and it does reveal what's in their heart and they wish it hadn't. They and they wish it hadn't. But coarse jokes, worthless chatter, slander, lies, bigotry, hatred, all these things. But Jesus makes it clear that every one of these words must be examined and dealt with, because these words will come back to haunt us on the day of justice. Matthew 12, 36 to 37, jesus says I tell you that everybody will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken, for by your words you will be acquitted and by your words you will be condemned. We must, in other words, deal with our words. And we must deal with that in advance of judgment Day, because by then it will be too late.
Speaker 1:The living God takes our words very seriously. Even long after we've forgotten what we said, he remembers. By his word he created the heavens and the earth. So words mean more to him than we can ever imagine. And so we're left with this fact that when we think about the human mouth, it's possibly the most powerful part of the human body. And Jeremiah, chapter 1, verse 9, jeremiah asks the Lord to control our tongue, as he did with Jeremiah. We might say Lord, I need you to control my tongue, as you did with Jeremiah. Jeremiah 1.9.
Speaker 1:I started to quote Ecclesiastes 5.2, but let me quote the whole of it, as we're coming towards the end now. Ecclesiastes 5.2, do not be quick with your mouth, don't be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven, you're on earth, so let your words be few. Ecclesiastes 5.2. We have two ears, one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak. And when we listen to Jesus, the word of God, he is the word of God, the mouth of God, the voice of God all these are titles that apply to him. When we do that, when we listen to him, jesus, the voice of God, all these are titles that apply to him. When we do that, when we listen to him, jesus the voice of God, we are humbled by, yes, his power, but also his purity, and it's worth taking time to meditate on the power of Jesus' speech.
Speaker 1:How does he speak? What does he say to people? How does he do it, what doesn't he say, and so on. He only has to say the word, one word, and the storm is stilled, the leper healed, the blind see, the dead are raised. And that what the? The mouth of the lord has spoken, so things happen, things change.
Speaker 1:Isaiah 58, verse 14. Isaiah 58, 14 you will find your joy in the lord and I'll cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father, jacob. The mouth of the Lord has spoken. You will find joy in the Lord, you will triumph. The mouth of the Lord has spoken Now, at least 16 times in the Bible we're told this that the mouth of the Lord has spoken. He accomplishes judgment, salvation, truth.
Speaker 1:The mouth of the Lord has spoken this way in which, when he speaks, we take it seriously. We should take our own words seriously, but when he speaks, we know that there is no lying, there is no deception, there is no falseness and betrayal or anything. His words accomplish things because he only speaks what he needs to speak and he says it in the right way and his actions are completely aligned with his words. And I love Deuteronomy 8.3 as we come now to this we'll with this, the lord humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known to teach you that human beings do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Speaker 1:I wanted to end with that one, because it pulls together these different functions of the mouth that the eating and drinking aspects of the mouth were trying to take in food and yet laid over. That is the way that the mouth speaks and it's that I can't like. I always feel there's more going on in deuteronomy 8 3 than I'm able to fully grasp, but the way that the mouth taking in food and drink, and we believe that the food and the drink that we're taking in is what gives us life, and yet in fasting or times of hardship where we can't get food or drink, we then discover if we're the Lord's people and we know him, that what we learn is that his speech to us grants life and sustenance on a daily basis, more significantly, more profoundly, more lastingly, eternally than anything else.