Loading summary
Transcript48 lines
- [00:00]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
I'm reminded of Jesus's words in Matthew 12, that it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. And then he proceeds to say some of the most terrifying words in all of Scripture, that at the last judgment we will give an account for every idle word that we speak.
- [00:25]
Nathan
That really is a terrifying verse, isn't it? Sadly for many of us, myself included, we can be quick to speak and slow to listen.
- [00:34]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
The tongue, to quote James, is a
- [00:37]
Nathan
small member, yet it boasts of great things. So today on this special episode of Renewing youg Mind, we'll be considering communication from a Christian perspective. Reverend Erin Garriott, the managing editor of Ligonier Ministries and Table Talk magazine, joined me in the studio to discuss his new book, A Word Fitly A Theology of Communication. We covered topics like why godly communication is important, how to listen well, the challenges we face as Christians in our digital age, and much more. Before we get to that conversation, if you'd like a hardcover copy of this theologically sound and practical book, simply give a donation in support of renewing your mind@renewingyourmind.org before midnight tonight. It is a book I wish I
- [01:26]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
had read decades ago.
- [01:28]
Nathan
If you're not watching this on YouTube, search for renewing youg Mind on so you can watch the conversation in the studio.
- [01:38]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
Reverend Aaron Garriott, congratulations on the publication of your first ever book, A Word Fitly Spoken. It was a great help to me as I read it, and I think as far back as I can remember, I've been interested in communications. But I wish I had read this book as a teen. So thank you for your ministry, for writing this book, and for taking the time to stop by the Renewing youg Mind studio today.
- [02:00]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
Thank you, brother. It's good to be with you and good to see this new studio. It's wonderful.
- [02:05]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
Yeah. Well, as we think about communication, why did you write this book? And to quote you, why is it important to think about communications with this question in mind? Who has made man's mouth?
- [02:19]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
Yeah, when I had graduated from Wheaton, having studied communication, I was not under the impression that I would continue studying communication. So it rather took me by surprise. But I'll give you two things that gave me a renewed interest in the topic. There's more to be sure, but first, I noticed that most Christians, at least many of us, give a lot of thought to what we do as Christians, but not so much what we say. And I'm reminded of Jesus words in Matthew 12 when he's talking to the Pharisees, that it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. And then he proceeds to say some of the most terrifying words in all of Scripture, that at the last judgment, we will give an account for every idle word that we speak. And so I noticed that in my own heart and in other Christians I was interacting with, that we don't give a lot of thought to what we say. Second Nathan, I would say that I began to notice something else in my own heart and in other Christians I knew, and that is there was beginning to be an atrophy of conversational eloquence. And what I mean by that is what used to be pretty natural abilities to communicate began to be a phenomenon of a bygone era. And we can give different reasons for that. And it's not necessarily a generational thing. So it's not that the zoomers or the millennials have a hard time sustaining conversations where older folks are okay with it. I kind of notice it across the board. And so what is it about our age that we live in that now? People have a hard time sustaining conversation. They have a hard time making eye contact. And no doubt part of the answer, I think, is the proliferation of digital media that we find ourselves in today. So that what used to be just normal conversation, now people's skills are beginning to decrease. And so because of those two things I noticed, I began doing some more research theologically and biblically to see, is there something that I can write here that will help the church, that will help Christians think thoughtfully and carefully about what it looks like to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, to use our tongues faithfully in this world that we find ourselves in, because it really is a brave new world.
- [04:53]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
We'll probably get to digital media later. But to quote Jesus as you referenced, giving an account for every idle word in this social media age, that line is. And that truth from the lips of Jesus is even more terrifying.
- [05:08]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
Absolutely. Because now everyone is given a platform to speak, and that can be a good thing, but it can be a dangerous thing. So we're more accustomed than ever to employing idle or careless words. And Christians need to be very careful that we're using our tongues faithfully in this environment.
- [05:28]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
What I appreciate about this book is it's not just another how to win friends and influence people book. What would you say makes this book distinct from other books on the topic of communication, even some of those written by Christians?
- [05:42]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
Yeah. What I ran into is that most books on communication, even most experts on communication, will treat communication as if it's a neutral tool that we simply need to manage better. And they divorce communication from God, and we can't do that. Communication is absolutely tethered to God first and foremost, because God is the first speaker. God is a communicative being, which simply means that he has an inclination in Himself to share his goodness with his creation. And God has been communicating in his trinitarian Godhead from eternity past. So humans didn't invent communication. We don't sustain communication. So whenever you untether communication from a theological foundation, what happens is just increasing frustration with our communication efforts. So it's not simply pragmatics. There's some helpful books out there. I mean, even Dale Carnegie's book is helpful in many ways. But it begins with the pragmatic question, rather than asking, what is communication? And how has God created me? And how has he created me to glorify him with this most powerful tool that he has given to me? It's not neutral. It's profoundly theological.
- [07:02]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
How does it change our understanding of communication? When we think of communication as stewardship,
- [07:09]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
Most Christians are aware of the concept of stewardship, but typically we think of stewardship as having to do primarily with resources, with finances. How we steward those gifts. Well, and that's a good thing. But biblically, stewardship is much broader than that. Stewardship is a managerial principle. So a steward is one who has been entrusted with a gift, and it is incumbent upon him to dispense of that gift faithfully. Or what does faithfulness look like according to the. The wishes of the giver, the one who gave that gift? And so stewardship is not fundamentally, is not exclusively about finances. It's also about how God created us. And so you think about how God created us in his image. And part of that is in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. So we've been given this ability to craft language, to communicate with God, to commune with God, and to commune with. With one another. And so when you bring communication out of the realm of adiaphora, simply indifference, and into the realm of stewardship, well, now we're placed on solid ground to ask the pragmatic questions like how can I glorify God with my tongue? How can I commune with God? How can I pray, how can I sing? How can I enjoy fellowship with other Christians? And so it's a fundamental principle to bring it out of the realm of adiaphora and, and see it as faithful stewardship. I didn't create this gift, therefore I can't use my tongue. However, I want To I have to use my communicative faculties according to how God wants me to.
- [08:50]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
So as we think about this as stewardship and correct me if I'm wrong here, the Christian approach shouldn't be merely how do I not sin with my tongue? But there should be some element there. How can I use my tongue well? How can I communicate better? Whether it's how I speak, how I listen, how I perhaps even present myself? Would that be fair?
- [09:10]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
That's exactly right. I think most Christians, when they give thought to how they employ their tongues, they think I need to steer clear of the more grievous sense. Slander, backbiting, gossip, those kind of seem obvious to us. And if you look at the larger catechism, Westminster Larger Catechism 145 and 144, concerning the Ninth Commandment, there are certain things that are required in that commandment and certain things that are forbidden in that commandment. They're very exhaustive lists and can be very daunting when you read through them. But what's forbidden are things like slander and talebearing and gossip and backbiting, undue silence. All of these various sins of the tongue that in some respects have become tolerated sins in the church. On the other hand, though, if you look at 144 and what is required in the ninth commandment, God is a God of truth. Therefore we are to steward the truth well. And how do we steward the truth? By what we say and by what we don't say. So it's not just about avoiding the big sins, avoiding filthiness, but also using your tongues to speak the truth. In love.
- [10:23]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
Sinclair Ferguson wrote the foreword to this book, which I'm sure is a great Honor to have Dr. Ferguson do that. You quote him several times, but there's one quote here that I'd like to read. Sinclair Ferguson says it is one thing to cage the tiger, but another thing to tame and retrain it as a servant. Can you speak more to that?
- [10:45]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
Yeah. The tiger there he's referring to is the tongue. And I think he's echoing the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. James, you read James, the New Testament, Proverbs. And James begins his letter by admonishing Christians, exhorting them, be slow to speak and quick to hear. Slow to speak and quick to hear. And then he says, if a man says he's religious but doesn't bridle his tongue, that man's heart is deceived and his religion is worthless. And then in chapter three, James talks About the danger of the tongue. The tongue is a small instrument. It's a small fire, but it can ignite a whole forest fire and bear significant destruction. And history bears that out, doesn't it? I mean, how many churches, institutions, families have been destroyed because of these sins of the tongue? But then what's interesting about what James does is he, in chapter three, he refers to wisdom from above. So if you want to tame the tongue, which no man can do by himself, education can't do it for you. It might help. Willpower can't subdue the tongue. It might help. But what you need is wisdom from above. And if you tie all this together and look at the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament, where do you get wisdom? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So if you want to be a good communicator, if you want to learn how to bridle your tongue, how to tame your tongue, how to use your tongue and steward your tongue in a way that honors God, you need to fear God first and foremost. You can't tame it yourself. You need to fear God in union and communion with Jesus Christ. And from that place, now you can learn to tame your tongue well, to. To use your tongue to bless God and bless others, rather than cursing others. Because James says, this ought not to be so. Brothers, it wasn't intended to be this way. But yet in this already, not yet, we still use our tongues to curse and to bless the very same instruments.
- [13:12]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
What would you say to somebody watching or listening today? And as they're thinking about taming the tongue, taming this tiger, and they realize, you know, I have been cursing others, Maybe they haven't cursed God, but they have not bridled their tongue. Perhaps they're thinking about social media, things they've posted or comment arguments they've got into. What do you say to someone that's like, I'm guilty of this?
- [13:36]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
Yeah. Well, first, don't let past regret dictate present faithfulness. Repentance is very liberating. So repent of using your tongue to curse, rather to bless. But do not think that soul willpower or education or methodology or technique can possibly cure the poison. I mean, James refers to the tongue as possessing deadly poison, but that poison is being drawn out. If you're united to Jesus Christ, who is the vine and you are the branches, you can do nothing apart from him. If you are united to Jesus Christ and you possess the spirit of God within you, then God is slowly draining that poison from your tongue. And so you cannot do it on your own, but you can do it in reliance upon the Holy Spirit and the grace of God in the context of the covenant community. So don't go at it alone. But also do not let regret dictate your present faithfulness.
- [14:39]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
You dedicate a chapter on the ministry of the earth listening. As someone who is paid to speak for a living, can you help me understand what is the importance of listening? Not just speaking.
- [14:53]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
I take that terminology from Bonhoeffer. So Bonhoeffer talks about the ministry of listening that God has entrusted to every believer in order to imitate God. Because God is the great listener. God's ear is always inclined toward his people. And we can approach the throne of grace in our hour of need, that is, at any time because of the grace of God. Now, when it comes to listening, what's interesting is even for preachers, for teachers, you get a break from speaking. You'll get a break after this. I'll get a break after this. You rarely get a break from listening. You're listening almost the entire day. Whether you're reading, watching something, talking to somebody in conversation, we're constantly listening. And what I referred to earlier is because we're always given a platform to speak in our day and age. So if I can liken communication to a basketball game, then most of us, if we're honest, are ball hogs. We like to speak. We like to be heard more than we like to listen. It takes great humility to listen, to imitate the Lord Jesus Christ. And being a Great listener, Proverbs 18:2 says that a fool doesn't care about understanding. He takes no pleasure in understanding, only in expressing his opinion. So most of us, again, if we're honest, we act very foolishly when we prefer speaking to listening. And so it's a way that we can imitate the Lord Jesus Christ by being great listeners, listening well to what others have to say, listening to what God has to say in his word processing, understanding, not being foolish with the words that are coming to us by digesting them and taking great delight in what others have to say to us.
- [16:45]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
I think you mentioned this earlier, but when we think about communication, we might think of speaking or listening. But you reference singing, and in one section in this book, as you're. You're speaking about the gift of being able to sing and corporate worship singing together, you reference a time where you were unable to sing, and this is what you say that day my brothers and sisters sang for me, and they sang to me. And as I read that in that moment, I had another glimpse of the significance of corporate worship. Could you speak a bit more to that? What was that situation?
- [17:23]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
We all know that music is powerful. Music is powerful in that it's catechetical. It's didactic. That is, it teaches. That's why Paul says to the Colossians, admonish one another, teaching one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. So there's a teaching component to our singing. It also has the ability to stir the emotions in a way that no other medium does. You think about the wisdom of God and the grace of God in giving us 150 Psalms. And Calvin referred to the Psalms as an index of the human heart. What he meant by that is, there's not an emotion that you or I can feel. There's not an experience that you or I can go through that is not expressed in or addressed somewhere in the Psalter. It's a perfect index of the human heart. And God was wise in giving us these psalms that we can sing to one another and to ourselves to fortify ourselves. You think about the great battle hymns, the great battle songs. When soldiers are marching to battle, why are they singing to one another? Because it fortifies their souls. And it came home to me in the instance that I talk about in the book, Actually, I think, Nathan, that you were in the pew behind me or the pew in front of me this day. It was a time in my life when my wife and I had just had a miscarriage. She had just been diagnosed with cancer. So it was a time when we were grasping for hope, clinging to the promises of God. And as most Christians know, when you're in the throes of sadness, it's hard to pray. It's even harder to sing. And so I rose to sing this Lord's day morning. And we were singing. How firm a foundation and God will sanctify to you your deepest distress. And it was a weird experience because I actually couldn't sing. I didn't have the unction. I didn't have the strength to sing. But the saints in front of me, beside me, behind me, lifted up my soul and sang for me. It was a powerful moment of not only teaching me the goodness of God and using even my deepest distress to sanctify me and to sanctify my family, but also to fortify my soul in a time when I couldn't sing. And so we need to be grateful and appropriate the. The songs that God has given to us and these voices that God has given to us to sing to him. But Also to sing to one another.
- [20:13]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
That is an aspect of worship and corporate worship that I had not considered before. And I think it's just a great reminder and encouragement to all the saints that we are ministering to each other in that context. And so if there are men, I know men sometimes don't like to sing. It's like, stand up.
- [20:32]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
That's right.
- [20:32]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
Sing. Sing loudly. It is a blessing to God's people.
- [20:36]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
And you're not only singing to God, you're singing to others as well. And so it's selfish to not sing. You're not only dishonoring God, but you're robbing others from the joy of hearing your voice. Even though your voice might not be very pretty. Mine's not. But sing loudly and sing faithfully to the glory of God and for the good of your fellow saint.
- [21:00]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
Amen. You write in a word, fitly spoken. Every conversation counts forever. Now, I think I know what you were tapping into when you wrote that, but could you unpack that for us?
- [21:13]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
Yeah. RC Always talked about, as you know, Nathan, right now counts forever. And so I'm applying that principle to the way that we use our tongues. If right now counts forever, then it's also true that every conversation counts forever. This conversation in front of you counts forever. And this is on account of at least two things, our doctrine of people and our doctrine of Providence. Everybody, Christian and non Christian, everybody, is created in the image of God and worthy of our dignity, of dignity, our honor and our respect. So because of that, the bagger in the grocer line is worthy of your respect and your honor. Everyone is made in the image of God, but also our doctrine of Providence. When you interact with the bagger at the grocery store, that interaction is no accident. It might feel very inconsequential to you. And amid the busyness of life, what we're liable to do is simply rush through the grocery line to get what we need and get where we really want to be. But what we need to be reminded of is the comprehensiveness of God's providence. He ordains and orchestrates every single interaction that you and I have, every moment of every day, no matter how inconsequential it might seem. And when you. When you step back and consider that reality, it's actually very freeing because it takes you away from your production mentality and allows you to slow down a little bit and to be grateful for the opportunities that God gives you to interact with a whole host of people that C.S. lewis says that if you saw their glory in the new heavens and new earth. Talking about Christians here, you'd be tempted to worship those people. That's how glorious they will seem. Okay, if that's true, then if you apply that principle here and now, then why not show them the dignity and the honor that they deserve by virtue of being made in the image of God, and if they're Christians, remade in the image of God in their sanctification. So slow down and enjoy the conversations and the people that God puts in front of you.
- [23:32]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
And as Christians, we have this extra obligation or treasure of the gospel that if we neglect these conversations, we may be speeding past opportunities to speak of Christ and speak of the Gospel.
- [23:46]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
Amen. So the gospel is to be stewarded well, and so is every conversation. Every conversation, every relationship is to be stewarded well. And that kind of removes the fear element. This person, this conversation, is not mine to hoard onto, but is an opportunity for me to steward well, to destroy the strongholds, as Paul says to. To proclaim the gospel to them and trust the spirit of God to do his work in his. Good timing.
- [24:13]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
One of the sad things of our day and age is the AirPods and the headphones that people are wearing. We have headphones on right now so we can actually hear each other better. But folks outside of a studio, they put these headphones on to actually block out the world. So it's very easy, and I experience it as I travel that normally, a conversation that you might have with someone on an airplane or at airport, you can't have now because they just put these things in their ears and they're kind of saying, I don't want to talk to you.
- [24:42]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
Don't talk to me.
- [24:43]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
Yeah, yeah. It's a sad time in many respects in which we live. Now, you state this. You say the church must recover this sacred art of persuasion. What do you mean by persuasion? And can I ask, as a student of Dr. Sproul yourself, was he a helpful model of persuasion as a teacher and as a gospel minister?
- [25:06]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
Absolutely. Absolutely, he was. And I miss it. I miss it from the pulpit. Persuasion often has a pejorative feel to it. When we think of persuasive people, we often associate them with being manipulative people. But biblically, the art of persuasion is a craft of being able to convince a person of a certain truth claim or to prod them to action. And if we're trying to prod them to the right action and we're trying to convince them of truth, then Christians ought to be the most persuasive People in the world. And preaching and teaching is no doubt a way of persuading others to believe certain things and to act a certain way. And RC was absolutely what we would call an experiential preacher, which means he preached to the whole man. He preached to the heart, he preached to the mind, he preached to the affections, and he was really, really good at it. However, the art of persuasion is not reserved to men like R.C. sproul. Every Christian is meant to be persuasive to the glory of God. The Bible itself speaks a lot about persuasion. The Bible is persuasive. So if you want to convince somebody of the truth claims of Jesus Christ, you can do a lot worse than then opening up the Scriptures to them and saying, read this. The spirit of God is persuasive through the word of God. You think about Jesus compelling people to come, talking about the parable of the banquet, compel them to come, persuade them that this is for their good, that this is true and good and beautiful. Paul, in his missionary journeys, went from synagogue to synagogue persuading the Jews and the Greeks that Jesus is the Christ. He was persuasive. He calls us to be persuasive again. Destroy strongholds, destroy every lofty argument against the knowledge of God, and persuade others about the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And so if the church wants to be faithful to that calling, we need to stop reserving persuasiveness to the RC Sprouls of the world. Thank God for these preachers who are very persuasive, but we all need to hone this skill of being persuasive to the glory of God.
- [27:47]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
We have mentioned social media, this digital age a number of times, but we can just camp out here for a moment. What unique challenges do you think Christians are faced with in this digital age when it comes to being good stewards of our tongues and being good communicators?
- [28:05]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
Especially sitting here with you. We could be here for hours talking about this. There's so many challenges. In fact, there's probably even more challenges than you and I realize. But let me mention just three of these, and hopefully I'll give you a nice alliteration that we can hang our hats on. There's ethical challenges, there's educational challenges, and there's ecclesiastical challenges. So first, ethical challenges. I know a guy who says pixels are people. And what you mean by that when you say that, and I heard you say that for the first time 13 years ago, is that when you're interacting with pixels on A screen. Behind that screen are actually flesh and blood people made in the image of God, destined for one of two places in eternity that should inform how we treat one another. But oftentimes, when there's a screen that's put up between us, now, I think that I can treat you however I want because there's a barrier between us. There's visual temptations not only for young people, for older people as well. There's visual temptations. I mean, what our children, if we let them, could see on a TV or computer or an iPad, what they could see with the click of a button is more and more filthy than our grandparents probably ever saw in a lifetime. So there are certain significant visual temptations that come with living faithfully as a Christian in this age. There are certain distractions that have presented themselves to Christians that past saints really haven't had to deal with. Now, the Christian life has always been, has never been immune to distraction, but perhaps there's never been as many distractions as there are now. So if you're reading your Bible, you're praying, and you hear that vibrate in your pocket or the ring on your phone in the next room, what's your immediate impulse? I need to go check that. I need to hear who's trying to get a hold of me. There's distractions all over the place. If you're talking to somebody and your Apple watch vibrates, what's your immediate impulse? To check your watch to see who's talking to you. So the distractions are ubiquitous in this age. So there are significant ethical challenges, and I could certainly say more about those that Christians need to think carefully about and face those challenges with courage to ask the hard questions. There are educational challenges, and here what I mean is that our technology is shaping us in more ways than we imagine. And the question is, is this technology shaping us into an image that we actually want to be shaped into? Oftentimes I tell parents when they're trying to figure out, how do I raise my children in this brave new world, say, listen, if you're not going to catechize your children, the world will happily do it. And it's not just children, though. The world will catechize anybody who gives them an ear. And so it used to be that in order to access the proliferation of the world's teaching, you had to go outside your own home and find it somewhere. Now it's coming through the very devices that we willingly put into the hands of our children. Now, I'm not advocating for an entire digital detox here. I do, however, think that many Christians would do well to consider the tools that we do carry in our tool belts and even to set parameters for when and how we use those tools. Because whether we realize it or not, the world is catechizing us, and they are shaping us into an image, educating us in a way that we might not actually prefer. And so there are educational challenges. Lastly, there are ecclesiastical challenges. And what I mean by this is, you consider the ordinary elements of worship on the Lord's day, the means of grace that we talk about, the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments and the prayers of God's people. All of those things are very ordinary. That's why we call them ordinary means of grace. Well, now all of a sudden, you introduce other elements that are technologically driven into the church's arsenal. And what do you think is going to keep people's attention the most? The preaching of the word or a video or a movie. So, you know, I consider, you know, churches who want to compete with the world in the coffee that they make or the movies they show, we're never going to win that game. There is a divinely ordained superiority to the preaching of the Word. I mean, Paul calls preaching foolishness. He's referring to the medium. The medium of preaching is foolishness to some, but to those of us who are being saved, it is the wisdom of God unto salvation. And so we glory in the preaching of the word. But preaching sacraments and prayers can't compete with our constant desire for very quick, shallow content, shallow bits of content. So our children and ourselves will always crave that if we give them the option. So the church needs to be very careful about how and when we introduce certain technologies that will inevitably overshadow the ordinary means of grace and hold tightly to those things that we will not give up the ordinary means of grace that God has given to his church. And so those are some of the challenges I think, that Christians are facing in this world is really. Digital media is ubiquitous. I mean, how many hours do you think each of us spends per day looking at some sort of device? And sometimes those are good and necessary. But we need to be aware of the way that we're being desensitized in ways that we might not anticipate. I think Neil Postman was well ahead of his time when in the 70s, he was writing about these things. And he said, you need to ask the question, not only what will a technology do, but what will it undo? And so it doesn't mean Christians won't adopt new technologies. But when we do adopt them, we've done the hard work of critically evaluating whether these things aid our discipleship or present a detriment to us.
- [35:08]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
Well, you know that this topic and this concern is near and dear to my heart. And so I really believe that the section just on this digital age will be a great help to the church. And my hope would be that it would spur on conversation, that parents would talk to their children, children would talk to their parents. And I think one of the challenges the church faces today is that there isn't this intergenerational dialogue happening where you have these older dear saints that have great wisdom and they've studied the Scriptures for decades, but they don't really understand TikTok and the world that their grandchildren are living in. Then you have younger Christians, newer Christians, who are very good. They don't have fat thumbs like we tend to have, and they know how all the new apps and devices work. But they haven't spent the time walking with the Lord. They haven't gone through suffering, they haven't had to wrestle through the issues of the day. So they know the technology don't have the wisdom. Their grandparents or their parents have a lot of that wisdom, but don't really understand the technology. And so we need to foster that conversation. And I think this book, a word fitly spoken, may be used by the Lord to encourage that. So thank you for including that in this book. Now, correct me if I'm wrong here, Aaron, but I would say that this book is helpful both for the CEO, leader of a large organization, as well as for a high school senior. Those who have had a lot of experience in communicating but probably haven't thought about it from a biblical perspective, and those that are just kind of venturing out into this brave new world and really need to invest in growing in this area and thinking about it biblically. Would you agree?
- [36:51]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
I hope so. I think the reason for that is to riff off another one of RC's mottos. Everyone is a communicator, just like everyone is a theologian. So everyone is a communicator. So whether you are a butcher, baker, candlestick maker, Whether you are 15 or 95, you have been created in the image of a communicative God, and you have been entrusted, endowed with this capacity to use your language, to commune with that God and to commune with God's people. Therefore, it is incumbent upon you to steward that gift well, no matter your context, no matter your vocation, no matter your age, no matter your gender, you can be faithful with the words that God has given to you, with the ability to speak words that God has given to you in a way that is unique to your context, that will set you apart from others in the world. If you look at what most employers are looking for in a job candidate, the number one thing that they'll ask for is communication skills. Now, oftentimes we don't know what that means or what they're getting at there, but I think fundamentally what people are looking for there is can you in your given context, can you not only be productive, but can you operate in a manner that is enjoyable to be around? So whether you're a grandparent or a 12 year old, I hope that this book will be helpful for refining your communication skills so that you can glorify God, but also be someone who is likable and enjoyable to be around as you converse with one another. Because you mentioned, you know, the TikTok Scroller, that person is going to have a hard time sitting down at dinner and having a conversation with older saints when there's no devices available. They're not used to it. But if you condition yourself to not be accustomed to those short entertainment bursts of content, I say that the Apostolic Church devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers, whereas many of us in the modern church have devoted ourselves to shallow content and therapeutic buzzes. If we can get back to the old ways, if we can get back to enjoying one another and communing with one another as we commune with God, then no matter your context, you will if I can use this word that I usually despise, you can flourish in that context because you're being faithful with how God created you.
- [39:50]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
We have covered a lot of ground today, but is there a final takeaway? One other thought that you would like to share when it comes to your book, a word fitly spoken Speak as
- [40:03]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
someone who has been spoken to. And what I mean by that is at the beginning of the Book of Hebrews, the author says that God has fully and finally spoken to us by His Son. So God is the speaker, the Son is the Word, the Logos. And he has spoken to us in His Son. So when you speak, when you use your communicative faculties, whether verbally or non verbally, you are speaking as one. You should speak as one in union with Jesus Christ, and therefore in imitation of Jesus Christ. So your speaking is not an autonomous exercise. You are speaking as one who is mystically and covenantally united to Jesus Christ, who is the Word of God that God has spoken to us and that eschatological promise we have that one day our tongues will be entirely purified, I think does two things for us. On the one hand, it heightens the importance of our words because God cares what we say. If we will give an account for every idle word, then that means I need to give good thought, lots of careful thought to what I say, what I don't say, when I say it, when I don't say it. But it also tempers our expectations. I mean, understand that you are going to fail. You are going to say things you shouldn't. You're going to not say things when you should have. But one day that poison will be entirely drawn out of your tongue and that tongue will be used to praise God forevermore. And let that eschatological promise give you great joy and freedom in the here and now. As you speak, as someone who has been spoken to by God the Father who has given you His Son, and imitate him who never spoke any idle word.
- [42:09]
Host of Renewing Your Mind
Well, I know that for many people when they read a word fitly spoken, it will challenge them. It challenged me. But it's also filled with many great encouragements and practical helps. So I'm grateful that you wrote this book. And Reverend Garriott, thank you so much for coming by the Renewing youg Mind studio today.
- [42:29]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
It was great to be with you, Nathan.
- [42:32]
Nathan
That was Reverend Aaron Garriott, author of the new book A Word Fitly Spoken, on this Friday edition of Renewing youg Mind. Reverend Garriott has spent decades considering communication from a Christian perspective, and those studies have culminated in this practical and thoughtful volume. So whether you're a teen or a CEO, request a copy today when you give a donation at renewingyourmind.org or or when you call us at 800-435-4343. And if you're a grandparent, perhaps get a copy for one of your grandchildren. This new hardcover book is waiting for you at renewingyourmind.org or when you use the link in the podcast Show Notes. And the ebook edition is available for our global listening audience@renewingyourmind.org global. Well, with Good Friday approaching next week, RC Sproul will help us understand the cross of Christ and our Savior's redemptive work for us his people. So be sure to join us all next week here on Renewing your Mind.
- [43:53]
Reverend Aaron Garriott
Sa.