Building With a Bridled Tongue

The readings join in one lesson: a house for God is not raised by hands alone, but by wisdom, repentance, and a governed mouth. Solomon gathers bearers, cutters, and craftsmen for a holy work. Yet Proverbs says the house may also be torn down by folly, and James shows where such ruin often begins: the tongue. A great beam may stand firm while one small flame sets a forest ablaze. Therefore let each man ask not only what he is building, but what his speech is building.

Jonah teaches that God hears from the deep when a man turns back in truth. He did not leave the prophet in rebellion, nor did He spare him so that he might return to ease, but so that he might become obedient and call others to repentance. As Irenaeus says, “For as He patiently suffered Jonah to be swallowed by the whale, not that he should be swallowed up and perish altogether, but that, having been cast out again, he might be the more subject to God, and might glorify Him the more who had conferred upon him such an unhoped-for deliverance, and might bring the Ninevites to a lasting repentance, so that they…”

So then, if God grants us deliverance, let us not spend it on idle words, proud judgments, and sharp answers. The mouth must serve the same Lord whom the hands serve. Tertullian warns, “When, then, on being cursed, I smite (with my tongue,) how shall I be found to have followed the doctrine of the Lord, in which it has been delivered that a man is defiled, not by the defilements of vessels, but of the things which are sent forth out of his mouth?” Let your prayers be honest, your labor clean, and your speech fit for the house you claim to build.