Words Matter

Have you noticed, in all of God’s creation, only humans, people created in his image communicate with words? Words are how he gives us his message of

hope and rescue. Words guide us into his truth about life and about who we are. The apostle John writes that Jesus is the Word.

Did you know that Noah Webster learned twenty-six languages in his efforts to create An American Dictionary of the English Language? David Barton writes

that “in 1778, he saw that American education was too reliant on the British.” He understood that if you can control the meaning of words, you control the culture.

Words can communicate truth and they can communicate deception. Just think of the words ‘tolerance,’ ‘equity,’ and ‘justice.’

Consider these two quotes from Webster;

“The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws…All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.”

“The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles, which enjoins humility, piety, and benevolence; which acknowledges in every person a brother, or a sister, and a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free constitutions of government.”

Words can lead us to evil, they can be destructive, and birth what is ugly. And words can leads us to what is good, they can unite, and inspire what is beautiful.

Words matter. Use them wisely.