Catching The Tongue

 

Several years ago, a man and his family were traveling to a nearby town to visit some relatives. The man had a new car and was having an exciting time driving fast on the twisting country roads. As they were zooming along the man noticed a three-legged chicken keeping pace with his speeding car. He slowed to get a better look at the chicken when it suddenly turned down a dirt road. The man stopped, turned around and followed the chicken. After a short distance, he came upon a house with an older couple sitting on the porch and dozens of three-legged chickens roaming about the yard. He asked them, “Are those your chickens? They’re the fastest I’ve ever seen!” The old man said, “Yep.” He then asked where they came from and the old man replied, “When the kids were younger, they were always fought over the chicken legs, so I decided to breed a three-legged chicken.” The man nodded and said, “Well, that sure made them fast, but what do they taste like?” The old man admitted, “Don’t rightly know; never could catch one.”

You probably know that every human being has a unique fingerprint, but did you realize that each person also has a unique tongue print? According to published reports, scientists have discovered that just as no two people have the same fingerprint, so each one of us can – theoretically – be identified by our own unique tongue print. The report didn’t say how the tongue prints were recorded but just imagining someone convincing me to lick an ink pad would deter me from participating.

That brings up a true experience involving his tongue as told by Dan Williams. “Back in 1979, when I was attending Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, I experienced a toothache. Since I didn’t know any of the local dentists, I dropped by the school’s medical office, which maintained a registry of reputable medical professionals who were willing to see students at a reduced rate. I was referred to a Korean dentist with the assurance that she was “one of the best.” As soon as I had climbed into her chair and settled back, the dentist abruptly ordered me to, ‘Stick out your tongue!’ Puzzled, I complied, only to be startled when she grasped my tongue and pulled it out of my mouth farther than I had previously known it could stretch. The dentist twisted and turned my poor tongue, examining it carefully. When I finally retrieved my tongue, I managed to sorely stammer, ‘What was that for?’ ‘Ah,’ she explained sagely, ‘the tongue is especially important – tells a lot about the health of the body. Anything wrong with your body, I tell it from your tongue.’ Thankfully, I have never suffered a repetition of that experience (perhaps because I have been allergic to Korean dentists ever since), but her words have always stuck with me as conveying a deeper truth than she may have realized.”

[Matthew 12:34-35] Jesus once said, “…For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.” Because our tongue says what our heart thinks, there is nothing more revealing than what we choose to talk about and how we choose to say it. Since Jesus taught that we can be identified by our tongue – or rather how we use it – we need to be extra careful in the words we choose. Elect words that are truthful (1 Peter 3:10); helpful (Ephesians 4:29); calming (Proverbs 15:1); and kind (Proverbs 15:4), for these are the kinds of words that bring glory to God (Colossians 4:6). Avoid words that are untruthful (Exodus 20:16); hurtful (Proverbs 26:18-20); vulgar, obscene, or irreverent (Ephesians 5:4, James 3:10-12). Every time we speak, we’re identifying our character, our choices, and even our association with Christ himself!